Taking ownership of windows protected folders ?

Hi,

I have a concern if taking ownership of a windows protected folder affects security or any other things ?

If so , how I can restore the old situation without restoring a full image of windows ?

Example of windows protected folders in windows 7 :
"C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService"
"C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService"


Example of the message shown when trying to open protected windows folder with an administrator type account :

 

One thing about modifying Windows folder security properties is that if you allow the Users group to write to that folder, and you use Software Restriction Policy, then a security hole will exist. Normally, Windows folders are mostly un-writable by the Users Group. And SRP works by not allowing any program other than those in \Program Files and \Windows to run.

Changing the folder permissions to allow Administrators to Read is not much harm.

 

Hi lunarlander,

Thanks for your reply ..

From what I understand , if I have an account with administrative privileges , I can take ownership without worrying about security issues ?

Ok, what about windows functionalities , services , applications ?

Is there any chance of conflicts or crashes ? I read somewhere about an issue when someone took ownership of a protected folder and then the local network sharing crashed ...

After all , do you have any trick to restore privileges without full image restore ? I read also that windows restore will not help here .. is that true ?

Sorry for all that questions,

 

You can always try System Restore. It might revert the setting.. not sure.

 

hi
try TakeOwnershipEx it make backup of rights so after you Take Ownership later you can restore
http://winaero.com/download.php?view.16

 

From http://searchenterprisedesktop.tech...ection-WRP-protects-critical-system-resources:

Did you already make this change, or are you planning to?

 

Thanks

Thanks , but is it required to backup the privileges before using this application ?

Yes I already made that change , I wanted to copy some files ( manually backup windows activation ) , so I opened a protected windows folder and the above message appeared..
I am thinking of restoring system with AXTM.

 

@Abdallah
its automatic make backup if you use right click menu
so if you make "Take Ownership" with right click menu then you can use same menu to restore right.anyway you can use desktop shortcut TakeOwnershipEx
and first make backup.
if thats don't work use "AccessGain" its more better
http://www.hobeanu.com/accessgain/

 

Possibly helpful links:
http://superuser.com/questions/486885/how-can-i-reset-windows-7-file-permissions
http://superuser.com/questions/321070/reset-all-permissions-on-windows-7
http://helgeklein.com/blog/2012/08/windows-7-default-file-system-permissions-listing/

 

Thanks co22, MrBrian, for your suggestions , I will see what I can do.