Windows 2000 Admin doesn't have file access???

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
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So I have this Windows 2000 computer that used to be a member of a domain, but then I brought it home to be a personal computer, and I took it off the domain. I created a new user that I put as a member of the administrator group. Everything was working fine, until I tried to delete some of the files put on the computer by the user I used to use to log on to the domain. It said I didn't have permission to do that. So I looked at the permissions for the files, and Windows informed me I only had read access to the permissions, and I was unable to change them. So I logged on as local administrator, and it had the same problem. I haven't heard of anything like this before, the administrator doesn't have full permissions to some files. Any thoughts? By the way, the files are from the program UWin and the domain user was also in the administrator group. Thanks for any help you guys and gals can give me.
 

NogginBoink

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
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You need to take ownership of the files before you can give yourself permissions to the files.

This is expected behavior. It means that even admins can't poke around your My Documents folder without taking ownership of the files. Which is, all in all, a Good Thing in my opinion.

-Noggin
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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This is expected behavior. It means that even admins can't poke around your My Documents folder without taking ownership of the files. Which is, all in all, a Good Thing in my opinion.

How often do you check the owner of your files? I'm willing to bet, even if you are the exception, that noone pays attention to that so if I take ownership and give you full access again you'll never notice. Also someone's already written a chown program for Win2K so I could give ownership back if I wanted to.
 

NogginBoink

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2002
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<< This is expected behavior. It means that even admins can't poke around your My Documents folder without taking ownership of the files. Which is, all in all, a Good Thing in my opinion.

How often do you check the owner of your files? I'm willing to bet, even if you are the exception, that noone pays attention to that so if I take ownership and give you full access again you'll never notice. Also someone's already written a chown program for Win2K so I could give ownership back if I wanted to.
>>


You are right. These are very valid points, and MS has not addressed them.

Still, I suppose what we have now is a start in the right direction...
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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Still, I suppose what we have now is a start in the right direction...

What direction? All that does is make things more complicated for the admin.
 

Saltin

Platinum Member
Jul 21, 2001
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<< so if I take ownership and give you full access again you'll never notice. >>



The ability of anyone (inculding the admin) to take ownership of files/folders can disabled via Group Policy.
If Im making the call on policy, and not the only admin in the domain, its a must for me.

I also audit ownership changes, so it's unlikely that no one is going to notice.

That said, most admin's don't give a hoot about stuff like that. As I've said a couple of times before , it's not the OS's inability to provide the tools, it's the admin's lack of knowledge/ability/desire to actually implement them.