Windows 10: How to gain full control over the system32 folder?

HelloMy computer's username is Steve and the PC's name is Steve-PC.I wish to have control over my system32 folder and all its subfolders and files, so I go to Windows | System32 | Properties | Security tab and see this:





and I click on the Advanced button and get the System32 Advanced Security Settings dialogue box.





I click on that 'Change' link at the top of that dialogue box, and a 'Select User or Group' dialogue box appears:





What do I do next, please, to give Steve full control over the System32 folder?

Thank you.

Steve

:)

 

Resetting General and Security in Document Properties

Hi Hugh,

you need to gain full control of file.

Refer the link;

How to Take Ownership and Gain Full Control Permissions in Windows « My Digital Life

 

will not let me gain ownership or full control over data d drive

Hi Amy,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

Method 1:

Step 1: Make sure that you are logged in as an administrator.

Step 2: Try to take ownership of the files and check if it helps.

Taking ownership of a folder from explorer

1) Locate the file or folder on which you want to take ownership in windows explorer.

2) Right click on file or folder and select “Properties” from
Context Menu.

3) Click on "Security" tab.

4) Click on “Advanced” button.

5) Now click on "Owner" tab in
Advanced Security Settings for User windows.

6) Click on Edit Button and select user from given Change Owner to list if user or group is not in given list.

7) Click on other users or groups. Enter name of
user/group and click ok.

8) Now select User/group and click
apply and ok. Check “Replace owner on subcontainers and
objects” if you have files and folder within selected folder.

9) Click ok when Windows Security Prompt is displayed.

10) Now Owner name must have changed.

11) Now click Ok to exist from
Properties windows.

Once you have taken the ownership of file or folder next part comes is granting permissions to that file/folder or object.

If the above method doesn’t work, you could try taking ownership from the command line.

Or Taking ownership of a file or folder from command line

Open an elevated Command Prompt window.

To do so:

1) Right-click on Command Prompt, and then click
Run as Administrator.

2) Type the following command and press ENTER:

takeown /f <foldername> /r /d y

4) To assign the Administrators group Full Control Permissions for the folder, use this syntax:

icacls <foldername> /grant administrators:F /T

The /T parameter is added so that the operation is carried out through all the sub-directories and files within that folder.

5). To know more information about the above commands, run these commands from a Command Prompt window.

takeown /?

icacls /?

Once you take ownership, you can grant permissions on those files or folders.

Hope this helps. Please reply to us with the status of the issue.

Thanks.

 

Welcome to the forum.
Sorry, but from a security standpoint that is a really bad idea. Even on general principles modifying the security of system folders is strongly discouraged. It is essentially an open invitation for malware to make a home in your computer. There are other problems as well. Windows was not designed to work that way. I have heard of it being done but with rather less than satisfactory results.

 

This is the heart of your system and changing permissions here can cause havoc if you don't know what you're doing. You already have access to most of System32 as an administrator anyway, what more do you need? With respect, if you need to ask how to change ownership or permissions you don't know enough to risk giving yourself full control.

 

Hello

Thanks for your replies and concerns.

If I type this in Windows PowerShell

Code: Get-ChildItem C:\ -Recurse | Where {$_.extension -eq “.mp4”} | ForEach-Object { $_.FullName }[/quote] I should get a list on screen of all MP4 files on my C drive. The file extension is irrelevant. Instead, I get this:

That is, I do not have permission to access RtBackup which is a folder in system32 and so, I am prevented from working as I should be able to in PowerShell.

If it's possible to have full control over that RtBackup folder - without having control over the entire system32 folder, - then that would be fine.

How would I do that, please?

 

Get-ChildItem shouldn't require full access, just read access. So all you need to do is go to that folder, view it's security properties and add your account with read-only access.

Alternatively, are you running PowerShell elevated with Admin rights?

 

Contrary to popular belief System32 folder is not a virus.

The System32 folder holds hundreds of DLL files that are essential to your computer running properly.

Some examples include the service that handles sound on your PC, files that are essential to booting into Windows, resources that make fonts display correctly, and more. Also contained in this folder are executables for default Windows programs. For instance, Calc.exe launches the Calculator, and MSPaint.exe launches Microsoft Paint.

 

I should get a list on screen of all MP4 files on my C drive. The file extension is irrelevant. Instead, I get this:
Access to the path 'C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\WMI\RtBackup' is denied. [/quote] That is, I do not have permission to access RtBackup which is a folder in system32 and so, I am prevented from working as I should be able to in PowerShell. You say 'instead', but when I run that command it turns out to be 'as well' - ie. I get the full list of .mp4 files AND the access denied message. That particular folder is heavily protected, not even Administrator has access, only SYSTEM has control. As such, you are unlikely to find your .mp4 (or any other files of interest) there. It would be better to just ignore the error, in fact you can tell Powershell to do just that.

Code: Get-ChildItem C:\ -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where {$_.extension -eq “.mp4”} | ForEach-Object { $_.FullName }[/quote]

Apparently...

windows - What is stored in %Windir%\System32\LogFiles\WMI\RtBackup? - Server Fault

 

Many thanks to you all for your replies.

Bree, this worked with no errors:

Code: Get-ChildItem C:\ -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where {$_.extension -eq “.mp4”} | ForEach-Object { $_.FullName }[/quote] as did this:

Code: Get-ChildItem C:\ -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Where {$_.extension -eq “.mp4”} | ForEach-Object { $_.FullName } > C:\myMP4.txtC:\>[/quote] I didn't know that

Code: -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue[/quote] existed, so many thanks indeed!

Steve

 

I am not quite sure how to add kudos or a thumbs up?

 

Glad I could help - there's a 'thumb' at the bottom left of each post, if you wish...