Taking
Ownership Of a NTFS File System.
The NTFS file system in Windows NT
(and all other secure systems) has a concept of ownership. For example, the user
that creates a file or folder becomes the owner of that object. Once a user is
the owner, he or she can do anything with the object.
But what if you need to change the
owner? For example, an employee leaves the company, and you have to assign his
or her files to another employee. Any book on Microsoft MCP certification will
tell you that you can't simply transfer the ownership to another user. You must
give him or her the right to take the ownership, and they must manually take
ownership of the files and folders.
To do so, follow these steps:
1. Open Windows NT Explorer,
right-click the file or folder, and select Properties.
2. On the Security tab, click
Permissions.
3. Select the user whom you want to
take ownership. If the user isn't in the list, add him or her by clicking
Add.
4. Select Special Directory Access
(if you want to transfer ownership of a directory) or Special File Access (if
you want to transfer the ownership of a file).
5. Select the Take Ownership check
box and click OK.
6. Click OK twice.
The selected user now has
sufficient rights to take ownership of the file/folder. The user should
then:
1. Open Explorer, right-click the
file or folder, and select Properties.
2. Click the Security tab and then
click Ownership.
3. Click Take Ownership.
Now the user is the owner of the
file or folder. An easier way to directly transfer ownership from one user to
another is to use the Windows NT Resource Kit utility named SubInAcl. The syntax
of this command is:
subinacl /object_type object
/setowner=username
Object_type is the type of object
(e.g., a file or subdirectory) and object is the path to the object (e.g., C:\Myfile.txt).
Username is the username of the user to whom you're transferring ownership
(e.g., Administrator). For example, the command may look like this: subinacl
/file c:\boot.ini /setowner=Administrator
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