Re: File ownership been changed

Who's Fred? Is there a profile folder named "MYPCNAME\Fred"? These "MachineName\UserName" folders often/usually appear when user profile corruption is encountered. When a user tries to logon if the Security Account Manager (SAM) recognizes the user name and password at logon and if it has no valid reason to refuse the logon, it allows the user to logon with a new profile, it creates a new profile folder from the Default User profile and names it as you see. Sometimes you will see folders renamed in a fashion as UserName.nnn (UserName.001, UserName.002...). The "MachineName\UserName" folders can also appear when you join machines to a domain but being that you are using XP Home that doesn't apply to you.

As for the S-1-5-21-11...... numbers, these are called Security Identifiers (SID) and that is really how all security and logon information is processed. The operating system uses SID's, but being that we humans would be quite confused trying to keep track of these series of numbers and that it would be quite confusing and a royal pain to try to use SID's, the operating system reconciles our UserNames with the actual SID's, with Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista user accounts and security, SID's are the only thing that really matter.

As to how to do a "wholesale" change of all security attributes from "Fred" to "David" the only (somewhat) easy way to do that is with the SubInACL tool. You can download SubInACL on the Microsoft web site. The SubInACL syntax is rather complex, to replace a user with another one the short syntax will be something like this:

subinacl /C:\*.* /replace=SomeUserName=SomeOtherUserName

(Note that if there are spaces in the user names you have to use quotation marks):

subinacl /C:\*.* /replace="Some User Name=Some Other UserName"

but in reality the above may halt on errors and it has no log to verify what was done, it usually works better with a more qualified syntax like this:

subinacl /outputlog=c:\mytest.log /subdirec=directoriesonly C:\*.*
/replace=SomeUser=SomeOtherUser /ifchangecontinue /noverbose /display
/testmode

If you copy and paste the above pay attention to the spaces, there is always a space *before* the slash (/). The /testmode switch above allows you to run the command without actually doing the changes, the results of the command will be recorded in the c:\mytest.log, you can open and see what changes would be made by running the command, if you are satisfied that all is ok remove the /testmode switch and rerun the command to make the actual changes.

To copy (backup) the ACL/permissions before you replace them send the output of the permissions to a file, then if you make errors or if you do not like the changes that you made you can use the /playfile switch to undo changes you make:

To backup:

subinacl /noverbose /output=c:\backACL.txt /subdirec=directoriesonly C:\*.*


To restore:

subinacl /playfile c:\backACL.txt

SubInACL documentation
http://www.analogduck.com/main/subinacl

SubInACL (SubInACL.exe)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E8BA3E56-D8FE-4A91-93CF-ED6985E3927B&displaylang=en

John

DavidM wrote:

Running XP Home SP2 (logged in with admin rights)

In Windows Explorer I have just displayed the Owner column, and
noticed that a lot of my files have the owner shown as something like
S-1-5-21-11......plus lots of digits, whereas files created recently
have MYPCNAME\Fred. This seems to apply to "data" files that
I restored when I had to rebuild my system a few weeks ago. My
family's files have a similar problem (with different digits).

Is there any way I can restore the correct file ownership, preferabley
in bulk, for each user, or would it be better to leave well alone?

Thanks, David.



.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: File ownership been changed
    ... When a user tries to logon if the Security ... with a new profile, it creates a new profile folder from the Default User ... You can download SubInACL on the Microsoft web site. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: Backup Profiles without Long Logon
    ... Roaming Profiles is a function of Active Directory; ... The speed of the logon is directly related the size of the profile and the ... Exclude large folders from the roaming profile. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • RE: redirected-redirected folders
    ... The SBS server denies access to these files so his logout sycronization ... local workstation and checked the files and folders the syncronization ... is having this problem is also set up with a roaming profile. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Sp1 and Eval SBS 2003 Unable to Install
    ... > * Use Outlook to export the contents in the public folders to .pst files ... > partition and clean install SBS 2003 server. ... > Another way is to create a local profile, ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • RE: Folder re-direction and "Offline files".
    ... after only one reboot the profile gets screwed up. ... and a 2nd share for the re-directed folders. ... do they automatically sync as OFFLINE ... not connected to the sever (laptops, down server, etc). ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)