Need way to disable “Permissions” dialogue and take ownership of everything

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I have heard there is a way to take ownership of everything in Windows 7 (mine is Home Premium 64 bit). Can someone tell me the specific steps to do this? I want to change everything all at once.

If I want to put a permission on a folder, I’ll do that but otherwise, I want to be able to do whatever I want without Windows asking me any questions.

Thanks!!!
Kelliann

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That is a very bad idea with Windows 7. If you take ownership of everything you’ll have problems with software installation and updates. Some won’t work at all. Some will appears to work but really won’t – making troubleshooting very difficult. Some will partially work.

Security model changes that began with Vista and continue in Windows 7 have made some things irritating for those of us who have used Windows for a long time. But it really is for the better. Changing system settings and files is something that should require a higher level of access than normal use. Once a Windows 7 machine is setup there should not be many instances of dealing with permissions and UAC.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe I found this post of yours from Feb. 24, 2011 when someone was saying they could not delete a jpg and everyone was trying to help. Someone suggested taking universal ownership and your response was:

You can take “universal” ownership by taking ownership at the root of a drive and letting the change cascade through all sub-folders and files. Be prepared for this to take a very long time. Unfortunately, there is no global command.

Taking “universal” ownership may have unintended consequences such as a system process/account not having necessary permissions anymore.

Joe

So I am assuming the above is what you meant when you said earlier today that it wasn’t a good idea to take ownership of everything. Now my question is: If you take ownership of everything does that mean that it takes away permission of “lesser lights” – the administrator, the user, whatever? Because it appears to me from looking at the security tab that all these characters can have permission to do everything if you want it that way. It doesn’t look to me like only one person (character) at a time can have all the permissions. Not being an IT person at a company and needing to know about Windows’ policies, I never looked into any of this. We ordinary individual home and small business single users should be able to do what we need to do without messing with Windows policies, IMO.

That thread is here, by the way:

http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread//135828-I-need-permission-to-delete-a-.jpg-file!/page2?highlight=winbubbles

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It’s not just the stuff I wrote about in the previous message. Almost every time I try to do something I get one of these permissions messages including the “do you want to allow Windows to make changes” every time I go to open Word! This is ridiculous and absurd. This is beyond irritating, it makes me furious and raises my blood pressure every time one of these windows shows up.

Would you explain what you mean about problems with software installation and updates and that some won’t work at all and that some will appear to work but really won’t? I don’t understand that at all. Why not? And what are the workarounds for such problems? This is just absurd that you can’t do what you want with your own computer without all of these consequences.

I hated Vista – so much so that although I bought a new laptop in 2007 and it took me til last year to pay it off, I never used anything on it but the browser (Chrome) and finally someone convinced me to put Windows 7 Professional on it, which I did. It is sitting next to me, still barely used. I got another one a few weeks ago with a 1TB hard drive and a ton of memory. The 2007 had only a quarter of its disk space left after Windows 7 was installed and is not capable of having enough memory installed for future needs so I felt there wasn’t much point in getting a bigger drive and still having to deal with memory limitations. So now I have 2 with Windows 7 making me jump through hoops. I need this to stop.

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So now I have 2 with Windows 7 making me jump through hoops. I need this to stop.

kellian,
Hello… There is a free program that i have been using for years without any problems… It’s called Winbubbles… there are many helpful “tweaks” that you can make your “7” life easier…Just be aware that you will be removing some “security” ….but if your careful with what you click on …”no problemo”:cheers: Regards Fred

PS: It seems that if you take “ownership” of some Windows things … that they retake it after re-booting… I have never been able to take ownership across the board …believe me when i say i have tried….

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Fred, I am going to go have a look at Winbubbles. I will wait until I get all this sorted out with the help of everyone here before I decide exactly what I’ll do but I definitely want to see this.

Kelliann

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Thanks for the clarification Kelliann. So it doesn’t appear that the application is causing the permissions messages, but rather it appears to be caused by access the user data – the word document in this case.

A couple of thoughts about the documents that give this problem. Were they imported from another machine? – could they have permissions from a different user, on the original machine?

The other thought is to do with the previous installation of 2007 on the Win7 machine. It is possible that the default program is still set to Word 2007 and the system is having problems opening the document because you now have Word 2003 installed. When you double click on a file, Windows will attempt to open it using the default application. There may be problems if this is still set to Word 2007. I assume that Word 2007 was fully removed from the system, but it might be worthwhile checking. Also, it might be worthwhile checking what the default program is set to for word documents.

It’s difficult to be sure from a distance, but I’m not sure that changing the UAC is going to do anything to fix an error that occurs when double clicking on a document it if using File>Open from within Word works.

Anyway, I’m not an Office setup specialist, so I can’t help much if it’s a Office configuration/setup issue, but do keep us updated on progress.

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Thanks for the clarification Kelliann. So it doesn’t appear that the application is causing the permissions messages, but rather it appears to be caused by access the user data – the word document in this case.

A couple of thoughts about the documents that give this problem. Were they imported from another machine? – could they have permissions from a different user, on the original machine?

The other thought is to do with the previous installation of 2007 on the Win7 machine. It is possible that the default program is still set to Word 2007 and the system is having problems opening the document because you now have Word 2003 installed. When you double click on a file, Windows will attempt to open it using the default application. There may be problems if this is still set to Word 2007. I assume that Word 2007 was fully removed from the system, but it might be worthwhile checking. Also, it might be worthwhile checking what the default program is set to for word documents.

It’s difficult to be sure from a distance, but I’m not sure that changing the UAC is going to do anything to fix an error that occurs when double clicking on a document it if using File>Open from within Word works.

Anyway, I’m not an Office setup specialist, so I can’t help much if it’s a Office configuration/setup issue, but do keep us updated on progress.

Tinto, I had a crashed hard drive on my XP machine, and the word documents were recovered from it. I put them on the desktop of this new 2012 HP pavilion that I got a few weeks ago.

My reference to Word 2007 was just that when I got an laptop in 2007, I installed Word 2007 on it and didn’t like it. At that time, the 2007 laptop had Vista installed. Last summer, I put Windows 7 on it.

I know, it’s confusing . But there are 3 computers – a 2003 with XP that had a crashed hard drive. A 2007 that now has Windows 7 Professional 32 bit, and a 2012 that has Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. No files were transferred from the 2007 machine so it’s out of the equation here. The files on the 2012 machine I’m typing on and planning to use came from my 2003 XP laptop’s crashed hard drive.

So you are right, they came from another computer – an XP computer where I was the single user. I own the disks for Word 2003 and with Microsoft’s help, activated it on this 2012 computer.

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Joe, you and I were typing at the same time. Yes, it is a permissions issue. I want to get whatever permission I need to open documents from the Windows Explorer in Word. For that matter, Excel spreadsheets too. And to rename photos or do whatever I want with them.

Documents are visible under Desktop/Libraries/Documents/My Documents/a bunch of subfolders.

They are also under C:/Users/MyUserName/My Documents (I assume this is where they are really stored; under libraries they are just shortcuts to the C: path.) So I would really like to get permission to do whatever I want starting with /MyUserName/ downward. But I can’t figure out how.

Checking under Control Panel/User Accounts, I see {my user name} with the word Administrator under it. Apparently that is the standard user account.

When I try to change from standard user account to Administrator, it won’t let me.

I hate this.

I have not yet tried Winbubbles.

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Checking under Control Panel/User Accounts, I see {my user name} with the word Administrator under it. Apparently that is the standard user account.

No, that means you are a member of the Administrators group.

When I try to change from standard user account to Administrator, it won’t let me.

It won’t let you change to an Administrator there because you are already an Administrator (i.e. member of group).

The change screen defaults to selecting a standard user, but that is not an indication of what you are currently.

Bruce

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I have UAC disabled entirely but it doesn’t help.

I just read that post #1 you mentioned, Joe, and am not sure what I would put in place of the “X:” for external drive letter.

Let’s say I wanted to get the permission I needed for the things in My Documents to open up in Word. Would I replace that drive letter with this path…. “c:/users/[myusername]/my documents” followed by the rest of the things he mentions? And use the quotes to indicate the path is all one unit?

If you need to take ownership, open a command prompt with admin privileges and type in:takeown /f “X:” /r /a (where X: is ext. drive)Enclose the drive letter with spaces in quotes. /r is recursive. /a grants ownership to the Administrators group, rather than the user.

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If you lower, or turn off your UAC settings you might get rid of a bunch of this stuff. I have mine turned down and do not get many of these at all.

30005-UACSettings

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Thank you, Ted. I’ll give that a try.

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kelliann1, changing the UAC settings as per Ted’s advice is possible, but I would recommend that you try to find out why the UAC is being tripped when you are simply opening applications.

If the UAC is being tripped as often as you describe it is a symptom of an underlying problem. Shutting down the UAC will be ignoring that problem.

If you are running a single user account, which is also an administrator account, you should have permission to execute the applications. If for whatever reason you don’t have permission, the UAC is doing it’s job correctly by verifying manually and switching off the UAC is not the root cause fix.

As a start, take a look at the file permissions (right click then inspect Properties >Security). Verify that your user account has permission to execute the application. If it doesn’t, consider any reasons why that may be the case – for example, go to User Accounts and check you are an Admin rather than Standard User.

To attempt to answer your questions about why there may be problems by taking ownership of everything: File permissions are critical to the integrity of the OS. The OS must be protected from malicious applications and, where necessary, impose restrictions on users accessing and/or modifying protected. Elevating permissions to take ownership of everything may break down the security of the system. Earlier versions of Windows were plagued with malware – one of the reasons why was because of the lack of segmentation between user and OS. Windows Vista and Windows 7 are much better in that respect, but they are far from perfect. However, it is illuminating to consider that many of the most serious threats to an OS now come from malicious software that attempt to run software by using elevated permissions, overriding the built in controls.

Hope that helps.

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Tinto, I installed my own copy of Word 2003 on this new computer because I was so frazzled I just wanted a good old familiar version on here that I felt competent to use without searching for things I want

I bought Office 2007 for the formerly Vista computer I mentioned, when it had Vista on it, and was dismayed at the toolbar changes. Between that and my dislike of Vista, I didn’t want to use Word 2007 on here so I installed my older 2003 that I used for years with XP. There is some issue going on with Word 2003 and Windows 7 – and I don’t know what. You are right about that. I called MS to validate it, so that’s not the problem. However, when I go into Windows explorer and click a document, it causes Word to open but the document won’t open. I get a message, something about the program (forget the wording). I have to go into Word first and use Open Document button to open the document. I looked around the internet and see there is some bug between Win7 and Word2003 but that but does not give the exact message I get. I downloaded the fix for the other bug but it didn’t work for mine. I posted in the Office section of the lounge about this.

I am running a single user account on here. So I assumed I was also administrator. When I look at file permissions, in many instances, the administrator (me, I assume) does have the appropriate permissions but still doesn’t allow me to do whatever it was that I wanted to do.

I am pretty cautious about what I click on. Not to say it couldn’t happen, just that I really have been lucky and I am at least very careful.

I have always run my computer with hidden files shown. Sometimes I have operating system files protected, sometimes not (if I want to see a file or folder name). I don’t get into them and mess with them. I am no expert but I have been looking at my computer’s directories and subdirectories since the days of DOSSHELL and so far I have not broken anything .

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There are system files and process that expect permissions and settings for what are called “well known accounts”. If your account takes ownership of everything these special “well known” accounts will not work correctly. Under normal circumstances a user should be able to run as non-admin user quite successfully with Windows 7. You can still run as a member of the admin group. Remember, that even then your account does not have unfettered access to the system as you did with XP. All of us who have used Windows for a long time became used to being able to do whatever we wished. From a security standpoint, this is a very bad way to operate. It led to many problems with infections, rootkits, and other malware being easily acquired by unsuspecting users. As a result ror many years Microsoft got bashed about their default security settings in Windows. Microsoft decided to remedy that perception and has changed to a model that protects the system much better by default. You can still change anything you wish you just have to have the correct credentials.

It seems from the other posts that your issue is more related to data permissions. I’d take ownership of the data folders and contents as a first step to see if that resolves your problem. It may be a bit tedious but will save you headaches will system servicing later.

Joe

--Joe

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I went hunting and in the thread I mentioned to Joe above, I found a link to this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/507-built-administrator-account-enable-disable.html?filter

I tried what it said, logged off and back on as built-in administrator, and discovered I could click a document in Windows Explorer and have it open in Word 2003 just as it should, with no problems whatsoever. So, this IS a permissions problem.

I logged off the administrator account and logged back in to Windows as me. I found the same document that had just opened as it should, and I looked at Properties/security tab. When I was the administrator, the security tab simply said “Everyone” and gave full permission to everything for “everyone.” When I am logged into windows as myself, the security tab doesn’t list “everyone”. It lists 3 choices: administrator, myself, and system. All appear to have all permissions except “special permissions.” I can’t change any permissions, they are all greyed out.

I tried to add an “everyone” and give “everyone” full permissions for everything in including “special permissions?” (what are special permissions anyway?). However, it would not let me check the box for special permissions. I okayed out of there and again tried to open the document from windows explorer and again could not. So the secret must be in those special permissions, I’m guessing.

The SevenForums thread explained the following “The built-in Administrator account is an account that has full unrestricted access and permission on the computer, and will not be prompted by UAC. It is not recommended to leave the built-in Administrator account always enabled, or use it all the time for just everyday purposes. ”

The problem with logging on with the built-in administrator account is that all my stuff that I’ve been working on including my Chrome browser and mail are on the desktop of my regular account. The built-in administrator account starts you off with a clean almost empty desktop.

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While logged in with your reguler account I think you should take ownership of your data folders and contents. See if post #1 at Windows 7 home premium problems helps with taking ownership.

Joe

--Joe

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Did you:

… go to User Accounts and check you are an Admin rather than Standard User.

?

Bruce

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You should replace “X:” with which ever folder you wish to change. The /F parameter on takeown is a genereic filename specification. That means you can specify a drive, a folder, or down to a specific file. In a command prompt type “takeown /?” to see an explanation and examples.

Remember to run an elevated command prompt to make sure you have the appropriate rights to make these changes.

Joe

--Joe

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I am reporting back that Word 2003 32 bit is now opening correctly in Windows Home Premium 64 bit when I click a document (.doc) from Windows Explorer. I don’t know if 32 or 64 bit has anything to do with it, just thought I would include that information here.

Why did it start working? Not sure. I have been working on this for days and didn’t follow the rule of changing 1 thing at a time. Now I am annoyed at myself.

After running the compatibility troubleshooter with no luck I typed the exact error wording into google search box and of the hits that came up, I chose to go here http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-sound/problem-with-command-line-switches-cant-open-word/18eb8dca-a900-48a5-8468-8b18f364e3a7?page=5

Ignore the page number at the end – I started reading from the beginning of the thread and got as far as page 5 before I quit reading.

What was happening to me was this. I click a .doc from Windows Explorer. Instead of opening Word 2003 and the document at the same time, I would get this error message:
There was a problem sending the command to the program.

Today I put the desktop shortcut to Word in the recycle bin. I went to start/programs (I have the “old” XP style start menu), and right clicked the word shortcut there. I opened properties and picked restore to previous version. I restored to the date I installed word. I did this because I’d messed with the permissions tab in previous days and decided I should start fresh. Before I restored I did check the permissions that were set against what I have on a windows 7 machine with Word 2007 installed. They matched perfectly. Still, I thought maybe I did something wrong.

After going back to the install date for Word 2003, I again tried to open a .doc from Explorer. No. Didn’t work. Got the same error message. Ran the compatibility troubleshooter. It suggested the thread that I provided the link for above.

Read everyone’s troubles and suggested fixes. Fixes didn’t work. Mainly they were: Go to Properties, compatibility tab, uncheck run as administrator. Or, then click button at bottom called change settings for all users and uncheck it in there. Or uncheck run in compatibility mode. I unchecked both run as admin and run in compatibility mode.

There were a bunch more suggestions. Apparently this error can also happen in Excel. One guy suggested Excel Options/Advanced/General tab and check or uncheck (I forget which – you’ll find it in the thread) the box for Ignore DDE something or other.

I went to Word options looking for such a thing. Not there. I looked around the options tabs and under security tab, unchecked something about random numbers for merge, and unchecked something about Save without privacy information. On compatibility tab I unchecked the sole checked item which had to do with linebreaks.

I decided to try and open any .doc file using word’s own Open command (which had been working fine, but just thought I would try anyway). It worked fine as usual. The same doc I could not open via windows explorer opened using Word’s open command, as it had been doing.

I left Word open and tried something I’ve tried before that didn’t work. I went to Windows Explorer and once again tried to open a doc from there. Surprise – it opened in the already-opened Word. This was the first indication things might be on the way to being fixed.

I closed Word. Went to Windows Explorer. Clicked the same document. It opened Word and instead of the error message, the document opened perfectly! Success!! I tried closing Word and opening several other documents from various folders. All opened Word and then opened themselves just fine.

Whether this success will stick if I shut down the computer, and restart, I have no idea. I don’t even want to try it.

I do know that “restore (Word 2003) to previous versions” when clicked from Word’s properties tab (right click your shortcut) did not solve the problem by itself.

I did check the file associations and as it was previously, .doc was associated with Word 2003 so no change there that I know of.

Right now, I can’t come up with a single solution or even exactly what was wrong with mine and what fixed it. But I do know that from what I’ve read, everyone who encounters this spends days on it, it’s enormously frustrating, and Microsoft has ignored the issue as far as I can tell and left the users to flounder around trying to find a cure. This isn’t right.

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I realize it has been quite some time since you asked this quesion but in case you, or someone else reading this, still hasn’t found the answer I’ve got your solution, well at least I hope so. I had this poblem when trying to add a locked folder to itunes, and after a ton of research and hours of frustration I found the schooling simple explanation. Open my computer and right click on the c drive and select properties. Open the security tab and select advanced. From there open the owner tab and press edit. Now select your user name, and this is VERY IMPORTANT check the “replace owner on subcontaioners and objects tab” if you don’t select this it won’t help. From there press okay, if windows security askes something along the lines of are you sure you want to so this click yes or okay. It will have a window showing the transfer of owenship, this will take awhile. After its done a box that will apear that says you have successfully changed ownership, and then you should be good to go. I know it’s rather frustrating that its that simple but it house help. Good luck!

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