Question Is it safe to take ownership of Program Files (and x86)?

[kanishknishar]

The default owner is the system but since it can cause privelege problems, I am wondering if changing the ownership for the entire directory to my account would be wise?

 

[Ralston18]

Unless you are dealing with a specific problem leave the ownership as is.

If you are dealing with a specific problem then update your post to describe the problem.

 

[USAFRet]

The default owner is the system but since it can cause privelege problems, I am wondering if changing the ownership for the entire directory to my account would be wise?

DO NOT DO THIS.

What problem are you actually trying to solve?

 

[kanishknishar]

DO NOT DO THIS.

What problem are you actually trying to solve?

Too late. My apps stopped working. I ran this command: icacls "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /reset /t /c /q

Now it seems to work. Did I do some irreparable damage? Are things back to the way are? Will some apps run slower?

I wanted to take ownership because I wanted to run a file from a game that Xbox (app) protected and whose ownership I could not take or open with even admin priveleges. Strange thing is even when I ran the aforementioned command, even cmd couldn't touch the Xbox game files. What kind of protection do these files have?

 

[USAFRet]

"Did I do some irreparable damage? "

Completely unknown.
And I am not going to investigate the intricacies of that command and switches. I'll leave that to you and where you found that command.

NOTE: It is generally not a good idea to run random commandline actions unless you know exactly what they do, and just as importantly, how to recover when things go bad.

 

[kanishknishar]

"Did I do some irreparable damage? "

Completely unknown.
And I am not going to investigate the intricacies of that command and switches. I'll leave that to you and where you found that command.

NOTE: It is generally not a good idea to run random commandline actions unless you know exactly what they do, and just as importantly, how to recover when things go bad.

I found it online.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/icacls

 

[USAFRet]

I found it online.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/icacls

OK. And what led you to believe that this was the solution to your original issue?

In any case...your system may or may not be OK.

 

[Ralston18]

Question to @kanishknishar

"I wanted to take ownership because I wanted to run a file from a game that Xbox (app) protected and whose ownership I could not take or open with even admin priveleges. Strange thing is even when I ran the aforementioned command, even cmd couldn't touch the Xbox game files. What kind of protection do these files have?"

Are you trying to hack into a Xbox game or bypass copyright/admin protections?

 

[kanishknishar]

OK. And what led you to believe that this was the solution to your original issue?

In any case...your system may or may not be OK.

I saw this suggested as a solution for my problem. I'm doing a system image recovery from before the ownership change.

Another question: I have games installed on D that now Windows won't know because C doesn't have corresponding files. Same for Steam and Xbox games, if I just straight away format my disk, would that be an issue?

 

[kanishknishar]

Question to @kanishknishar

"I wanted to take ownership because I wanted to run a file from a game that Xbox (app) protected and whose ownership I could not take or open with even admin priveleges. Strange thing is even when I ran the aforementioned command, even cmd couldn't touch the Xbox game files. What kind of protection do these files have?"

Are you trying to hack into a Xbox game or bypass copyright/admin protections?

No. I was trying to run a file within the game folder which I couldn't because of permissions. Hence 'protection.'

 

[Ralston18]

This:

" What kind of protection do these files have?"

The kind of protections that I cannot help you circumvent.

 

[kanishknishar]

This:

" What kind of protection do these files have?"

The kind of protections that I cannot help you circumvent.

It's about being able to run the file which I can't open. That's why I need to gain the ownership of the folder.

 

[Ralston18]

Likewise cannot help with gaining ownership of the file.

You are attempting to run a protected file in a folder that you do not have access to.

Nor any applicable admin privileges.

You tried using a Windows command to modify Access Control lists or otherwise manipulate user access rights.

Overall providing assistance with such efforts is in violation of Forum rules.

Closing thread accordingly.