Changing File Ownership

Hello,

<snip>

> Many of my user files on on a partition other than my boot partition.
> IIRC,
> if I do a clean install these files will no longer be owned by any user
> account, even if I create an account with the same name.

This is correct - if the files were not owned by a built-in account such as
Administrators, then they will no longer have an owner that means anything
to a new OS.

> So, my question is, how much trouble is it to change the ownership of all
> of
> these files (thousands) to an account under Vista?

It is fairly simple. The easiest way (if you have Vista Business,
Enterprise, or Ultimate):

- right-click the folder that contains the files
- click properties
- click the security tab
- click advanced
- click the Owner tab
- click Edit
- Click Other users or groups
- Type the username of the user to set as the owner
- Press enter
- Check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects
- Click Yes/OK to any prompts that appear
- Click OK
- Click OK
- Click OK

Or, the harder way (you will need to do this if you are using Vista Home
Basic or Vista Home Premium):

- Click start
- Type: cmd
- Right-click cmd when it appears, and click Run As Administrator
- Change drive/directory to the drive/folder that contains your files (e.g.
f:<enter> cd files<enter>)
- Execute this command, where USERNAME is the user you wish to have
ownership:
icacls . /setowner USERNAME /T /L /Q

> Can any administrator
> account do it, or only *the* Administrator?

An administrator is an administrator, they can both do the same thing. The
only difference is that "the" administrator always runs any program that
executes will full admin privileges, whereas normal admin accounts allow you
to choose which programs will be allowed to use your admin powers.

There is no reason to use the built-in administrator account at all (except
in the case of an emergency), which is why it is disabled.

If you are having trouble doing something inside of a normal administrator
account, it is important to remember that if the program you are using did
not prompt for permission ("Windows needs your permission to continue"),
then that program will not be able to use your admin powers.

Right-clicking it and clicking Run As Administrator will give it permission
to use your admin powers. A good example of this is in my instructions on
opening the command prompt above - without running it as administrator, it
would be unable to perform the commands.

> Can I assign ownership to a
> standard user account this way?

Yes.


--
- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/