Windows 7 Security Object (Folder & File) Ownership Problems

There are many reasons why permissions could go awry. A few examples are:

• You may have inherited an old drive and installed it in a new system with a new operating system.
• A program may have changed the security permissions.
• You may have messed around with the Security tab of an object's Properties. 

If you have ever been unable to access files in a drive, partition, or folder in Windows 7, then this may just be the answer to your problem. The following information was obtained from Microsoft Technet.

Open a command line, preferably with administrator privileges:

• Tap Windows Key.
• Type cmd - an icon with a command prompt image named cmd.exe will appear.
• Right-Click the cmd.exe icon.
• Click Run as Administrator.

The command we will be using is takeown (specifically takeown.exe).

• Type takeown /? in order to see the usage of takeown.exe and examples of its use.
• In my case, takeown /f h: /r /a, which means to change ownership (takeown) of all the files in drive h (/f h:) and its subdirectories (/r), and provide administrator accounts owner access (/a).

This will allow all accounts with Administrator privileges full Owner access to access the files in the drive or folder and its subfolders.

•