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If you’re running into unexplainable errors while running a program on Windows there’s a chance that the computer is trying to access a file that your User Account doesn’t have access to, or the program running doesn’t have administrator permissions. (You can enable a program to start with admin permissions by right clicking → properties → compatibility tab → Run this program as administator — but this is not always recommended because it can affect the way a program runs)

The permission settings are a security measure used to keep malicious files or users from hijacking your system.

At first all of this might seem like a giant pain in the ass, and maybe even a reason to switch to Mac. But actually once you get used to it it’s not that hard and can even be useful. For example you could set up a computer kiosk that blocks the current user from changing anything or logging off. Or if you do enough set up you could let someone remotely access your computer but not have access to certain things.

When I first started learning how to change these settings sometimes for some reason it still wouldn’t switch, even after it completed it. There’s a few extra steps you can do to fully take control of almost any file (except for some system and Windows Security files)

Before going any further please TAKE CAUTION sometimes when changing permissions there’s a risk you can take away your computer’s access to essential files and break certain programs, your operating system, or your hard drive. A lot of the times you can fix it by switching back, but sometimes, especially if you don’t remember what you changed, you can lose track of where your permission problems might be. Just be careful, don’t change permissions to your entire C drive or anything drastic. (Although I’ve done this) Just change what you need. This also helps keep your computer more secure.

Before continuing you might want to create a system restore point in case anything goes wrong.

Make sure the User Account you’re using is Administrator - It also may help to turn your Windows UAC settings (User Account Control) all the way down so you only get prompted for permission on things that actually need it

You can also disable Controlled folder access under Ransomware protection in Windows Security - which could possibly stop some programs from making changes.

Right click the File or Folder you want to take Full Control of and select Properties.

On the Security Tab you can see all of the Group or User Names that have permission settings for this file.

Click Edit to change permission settings for the Selected User

Select Each User and Check Allow for every option

Click Apply then OK - If there are a lot of files inside a folder you change sometimes this can take a few minutes

Those are all the steps for changing permission to a folder without taking ownership. If you can’t click Edit, or if the permission changes don’t stay after you apply them, then you’ll need to take Ownership and Effective Access.

Click Advanced

You can see the Name of the Owner at the top

In order to ensure Total Control of the file we want to change the owner to either your current username, Authenticated User or Everyone. A lot of the times the permission error is caused by the owner being Administrator and the current user account doesn’t have Administrator access to the files. If the file is owned by SYSTEM or TrustedInstaller beware, your operating system has controlled access to it so don’t change any important files. If you set the owner to Administrator then any program that accesses the files will need to be run as administrator to make changes to to the file. If you change the owner to Everyone then anyone can access the file, which can sometimes be a Security Risk.

Giving yourself Effective Access grants you the ability to change the owner in any circumstance (as long as you’re Administrator)

Go to the Effective Access tab

Click Select a user

Click Advanced ...

Click Find Now - This lists all the user accounts you can select.

Choose YourUsername (Email) and click OK twice - Now you have Effective Access to the file and can change the Owner

Go back to the Permissions tab

Click Disable Inheritance - Choose Convert inherited Permissions to explicit permissions on this object - If it says Enable Inheritance then it’s already disabled. Inheritance means that the permission settings of a folder above it are affecting it.

Click Apply

Next to the Owner name at the top click Change

Click Advanced ...

Click Find Now

Choose YourUsername (Email) again and Click OK Twice

Check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects and Replace all child object permission entries with inheritable permission entries from this object - Causes all the files and folders below this one to inherit the permissions you set here and take ownership of them.

Now Double Click Each User under Permission entries: and set Type to Allow and Applies to: This folder, subfolders and files

Check all the boxes under Basic Permissions- You can click Show advanced permissions to see more, but you shouldn’t need to.

Do this for all the users so each of them have the following settings

Type: Allow

Access: Full Control

Inherited from: None

Applies to: This folder, subfolders and files

Once all of that is done hit Apply - on the Windows Security Prompt Click Yes - If there are a lot of files inside a folder you change sometimes this can take a few minutes

If for some reason Inherited From on a user gets changed back to something other than None click Disable Inheritance again. If it keeps reverting back to an inheritance or If any users are duplicated with an inheritance added it’s probably because there’s a folder above it trying to put the permissions back the way they were, You can remove Creator Owner, or other troublesome users if it keeps re-inheriting, as long as your account has Full Control first. Remove any duplicate users that were added from inheritance (if necessary)

Click Apply and OK Again

Back in the Security tab check again to make sure all permissions are set to Allow for all users

Click Apply then OK

Now you are the owner of the file/folder and have full control. Any program run by you (your Windows account) will be able to access and change the files as needed

You can also try unchecking Read-only if you’re having trouble making changes to something. Be careful, if you try to change a setting on a folder with a lot of stuff inside like the C it could take 10-20 minutes to scan your whole computer. It’s possible though, but you’ll have to click through some files that aren’t permitted to change.

You can also check out this free simple Read-only disabler, it adds an option to disable Read-only by right clicking on the file and uses a command prompt command

You might also need to take ownership of the file/folder or disable Controlled folder access under Ransomware protection in Windows Security before you’re able to make the change

An important tip about Read-only -

"Read-only" box for Folders vs "Read-only" box for Files - A folder's "Read-only" box doesn't refer to the attributes of the folder itself. It is only there so that the user can change the read-only status of all of the files contained within the folder at one time.

Important extra notes - Permission issues will especially occur when you move hard drives from one system to another or reformat your computer while leaving additional hard drives untouched. You could see a username like “S-1-5-113 ....” This is a user account unrecognized by Windows because it’s from another system. Change ownership off that account for all the folders and have Total Control of the associated folders, then you can feel free to remove the user from permission settings and from your computer. Once you remove the unknown user from permission settings you can’t add it back, so be careful.

For outside hard drives it’s much safer to change Ownership of an entire drive than the drive holding your operating system. Personally for my extra drive I went ahead and set permissions to Everyone for the whole drive to make it simpler to install programs on both and be able to interact between them without much problems.

If you change something you shouldn’t have sometimes running the following commands in the Command Prompt (as administrator) can help fix your system.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

Quickly determine if there are any corruptions inside the local Windows 10 image. However, the option does not perform any repairs. (Deployment Image Servicing and Management)

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Scan and repair common issues automatically.

SFC /scannow

System File Checker - If some Windows functions aren't working or Windows crashes, use the System File Checker to scan Windows and restore your files.

TrustedInstaller -

This user account "owns" a variety of system files, including files in your Program Files, your Windows folder, and even the Windows.old folder created after you upgrade from one version of Windows to another. To rename or delete these files, you’ll have to take ownership of them away from the TrustedInstaller user account. This service is responsible for installing, modifying, and removing Windows updates and other optional Windows components, so it has the exclusive ability to modify them.

Owner Creator -

Creator-Owner is whomever owns the object (which is, by default, whomever created it). This makes it possible to give greater control to the creator of files in a folder where multiple users can create, without giving them all that level of access to files created by others.

SYSTEM -

System is the OS itself, sometimes also known as "Local System" or "System User". Also used by some services for maximum access to local resources.

Most files/folders have System, Administrator, and User permission settings, the rest are potentially removable just make sure the user you remove isn’t the sole user with Total Control.