How to reset all user permissions to default?

I accidentally stopped a user permission change task and now my system is all messed up, programs won’t load correctly after reboot, etc.. . I can’t change the permissions back because it tells me that I do not have access to certain folders. When I try to find these folders to change them manually, for some reason they are not visible any more. (I have show hidden files to show them)
I tried a system restore and the restore points are corrupt, so, I have been looking for a way to reset all permissions to default or factory setting if you will.

Is there any way to reset all permissions to default without going one by one?

Any help will be much appreciated!!

Welcome to Microsoft Answers!

You will need to run ‘Subinacl Tool’ to reset the permission to normal. To reset system permissions, follow the steps:

1. Download subinacl.msi from the following link, and save it on the desktop.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8ba3e56-d8fe-4a91-93cf-ed6985e3927b&displaylang=en#AffinityDownloads (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8ba3e56-d8fe-4a91-93cf-ed6985e3927b&displaylang=en#AffinityDownloads)
2. On the desktop, double-click subinacl.msi to install the tool.
3. Select C:\Windows\System32 as the destination folder.
Note This step assumes that Windows is installed in C:\Windows. If Windows is installed elsewhere, select the appropriate path to .\System32.
4. Open Notepad.
5. Copy the following commands and then paste them into the opened Notepad window.

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=system=f

6. In Notepad click File, Save As, and then type: reset.cmd
7. In Notepad click Save as type, and then select All Files (*.*).
8. Save the reset.cmdfile to your desktop, and close Notepad.
9. Double-click the reset.cmdfile to reset the Windows Update permissions.
Note This step may take several minutes, so please be patient. When the permissions have been reset, you will be prompted with «Finished, press any key to continue.»
10. Press any key to complete the installation.

Check if you have the right permissions to all the folders for all users.

For more information you may check the article given below. The article given is for Windows XP updates, but still holds good for Windows Vista as well as Windows 7.

Hope this information is helpful.

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

How to reset File & Folder permissions to default in Windows 10

If you had to change the permissions of files and folder in Windows for some reason, and if you want to reset the permissions to default, this post will help you. One of the users reported that he had to set the ownership and permissions to everyone and full control for a specific task, and now that it’s done, getting back to the default permission is difficult. Since the option is not built into the system, we will have to use the secedit and icacls commands to reconfigure.

How to reset File & Folder permissions to default

Security is essential, and it is not just that other users can access the files, but programs you install on the computer also get the same access. The good news is that fixing the permissions to default is easy, and all you need is to run a command-line program to fix it. Before going ahead, create a system restore point, so in case things go wrong, you can restore.

1. Run icacls command
2. Run Secedit command

You will need admin permission to execute the commands.

1] Run icacls command

Another method to resolve this using the icacls command. However, you will need first to take ownership of the folder and then execute the command. Windows uses the Access Control List to configure permissions for all files and folders. Icacls is a command-line utility that can display and modify the permissions on specified files and apply them.

It comes with a reset option that replaces ACLs with default inherited ACLs for all matching files. We will use the following options to reset

• t—Operates on all specified files in the current directory and its subdirectories.
• q—Suppresses success messages.
• c—Continues the operation despite any file errors. Error messages will still be displayed.

Next, run the following on an elevated command prompt—

Once done, you must save the permission into a file that you can use again later or apply to other computers.

2] Run Secedit command

It allows you to configure and analyze system security by comparing the current config with a template.

Configures and analyzes system security by comparing your current security configuration against specified security templates.

Type CMD in the Run (Win +R) prompt and then press Shift + Enter to open it with admin permission

Execute the following command-

You may get some warning, but you can safely ignore it.

Changing permission on Windows is tricky because there is no way to switch back to default permission once you change it. It should have been there right from the start and let Windows users fix it themselves.

I hope these commands were useful and helped you reset file & folder permissions to default in Windows.

Date: October 27, 2020 Tags: Files, Folder

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Quickly Reset NTFS Permissions in Windows 10

Sometimes you need to reset custom NTFS permissions applied to a file or a folder in Windows 10. After performing this operation, all custom access rules will be removed, and inherited permissions will be restored.

NTFS is the standard file system of the Windows NT operating system family. Starting with Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6, it supported the concept of permissions which can be configured to permit or restrict access to files, folders, and other objects locally and over a network.

Permissions

By default, almost all system files, system folders and even Registry keys in Windows 10 are owned by a special built-in user account called «TrustedInstaller». Other user accounts are set to only read the files.

As a user accesses each file, folder, registry key, printer, or an Active Directory object, the system checks its permissions. It supports inheritance for an object, e.g. files can inherit permissions from their parent folder. Also every object has an Owner which is the user account that can set ownership and change permissions.

If you are interested in managing NTFS permissions, refer to the following article:

Permission types

In short, there are two types of permissions — explicit permissions and inherited permissions.

There are two types of permissions: explicit permissions and inherited permissions.

Explicit permissions are those that are set by default on non-child objects when the object is created, or by user action on non-child, parent, or child objects.

Inherited permissions are those that are propagated to an object from a parent object. Inherited permissions ease the task of managing permissions and ensure consistency of permissions among all objects within a given container.

By default, objects within a container inherit the permissions from that container when the objects are created. For example, when you create a folder called MyFolder, all subfolders and files created within MyFolder automatically inherit the permissions from that folder. Therefore, MyFolder has explicit permissions, while all subfolders and files within it have inherited permissions.

Effective permissions are based on a local evaluation of the user’s group membership, user privileges, and permissions. The Effective Permissions tab of the Advanced Security Settings property page lists the permissions that would be granted to the selected group or user based solely on the permissions granted directly through group membership.

By resetting effective permissions, you will restore NTFS permissions of files and folders back to their default inherited permissions.

Quickly Reset NTFS Permissions in Windows 10

To reset NTFS Permissions in Windows 10, do the following.

1. Open an elevated command prompt.
2. Run the following command to reset permissions for a file: icacls «full path to your file» /reset .
3. To reset permissions for a folder: icacls «full path to the folder» /reset .
4. To reset permissions for a folder, its files, and subfolders, run the command icacls «full path to the folder» /reset /t /c /l .

Substitute the example paths with the actual values matching your system.

Here are some screenshots.

Default (inherited) permissions:

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11 thoughts on “ Quickly Reset NTFS Permissions in Windows 10 ”

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Thank You so much
You saved a huge time for me by only a command
Thaaaaaaaaaaaaanks

Doesn’t work on me: getting a lot of “Access denied” 🙁

Well, win10 64bit #1709.
I tried it on c:\, it resulting in:
Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 4308 files.
c:\>

Might this work on a system that doesn’t even boot into safe mode? So, can you run it from a running Windows system that is not the one you want to fix? I’m running an external Windows to go system, win 10 1607 and it’s my internal hard drive that I need to fix. Luckily, I can get into safe mode as an administrator, so I will try it. I deleted all the s-1-5 entries in that registry, not knowing that it was important.

Hello, I had an issue a couple Windows 10 updates ago, the permissions for D:\Program Files\ and sub folders changed (not Windows install drive btw) and some games complain when running they can’t open this or that file. I use the icacls command and it seems to work but after reboot the permissions are re-applied and the issue return. Any idea how to make them permanent?

What are permissions after the restart? To which state they go?

Windows security permissions reset

Or you can seek on the Knowledge Base . http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313222 🙂
Tis article is for windows vista but i works also for windows 7.

Just run in a evalated prompt the following command.
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose

Corrupt permissions are ruining my life. Microsoft Technet showed a command that helps a bit.

secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose

This command line string is helping with one Security tab, but leaves serious system threats untouched in other Security tabs.

1. Do we «run as Administrator», or something more?
2. Where is the best place to run this command?
3. Why is this command resetting object permissions, but leaving in place corrupt file ownership?

I am running as Administrator, clearing corrupt permissions that appear for reasons I don’t understand in Properties > Security > Permissions.

But in the Owner tab, any corrupt Current owner permission is not touched by SecEdit. SecEdit fixes permissions corruption, but only for a few minutes! What triggers corrupt permissions in the system?

I am running cmd as administrator and travelling to each disk root to paste and run the secedit command string. Without this direct disk attachment, the command doesn’t do anything. But SecEdit is simply making it less likely that I have to Audit ownership before taking back ownership of eack disk. Bandaid only. Not a solution.

After running SecEdit, I use Windows Explorer to open Computer, and one-by-one for each disk, confirm permission resets. Properties > Security > Advanced
> Permissions > Change Permissions > Add . check for corrupt Names, Remove any found — may have to take ownership first. Notice all the «may have to’s». THe situation is relentlessly chaotic.

After SecEdit runs, the Security tabs corrupt differently:
Auditing > Continue > Add . rarely shows corruption
Owner . and Owner > Edit . most frequently show corruption

Is anyone else getting the same HKU permission corruption, where HKU numeric Keys are taking away SYSTEM and User permissions?

Current Owner: S-1-5-21-1677977301-2589601805-3516838272-1000

REALLY tired of resetting corruption, sometimes every 5 minutes all day long. Typically I save any file and get a popup telling me «illegal characters» and then that numeric is owner again. Once a corrupt permission establishes, the speed of corrupt extension grows. One instance of corruption, I can just reset Properties > Advanced > Owner > Edit > select correct Owner in Name list, check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects > Apply.

But leave that chore for another 5 minutes and the Owner tab options will be completely corrupted. I have to use Auditing > Continue > Add > Advanced > Find New > select a legitimate Name > OK > OK > check Full control > OK > Apply . then into Owner and Permission tabs and then Remove all the numeric crap.

Leave it for a day, and only recourse is report to Symantec (could be a bug, right) and report to Microsoft — both their engineers just look, hum-hah and can’t come up with a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to explain why numerics have locked us out and are the only permissions entity! Windows 7-64 on the rocks and upside down.

Every 5 minutes! Is there another way to secure Windows permissions?