How to gain r/w permissions to files administrator does not have permissions to?

Question

The problem occurred to me while trying to apply mods to a game installed via Windows Store in Windows 10 (xbox gamepass in particular).

The way installations work for this distribution method - they create a WindowsApps system folder somewhere and create subfolders there per installed product.

There is a folder for the game I'm trying to work with, but it's not owned by administrator account. I can change ownership on the folder and all subcontainers and objects. I can also add myself/administrator group to the users in the ACL and add full access permissions.

However, here's the interesting part - this process makes me show up as owner and having all the right permissions on the folders, but not on the individual files. The files still retain their default permissions and actually the Security tab shows "unable to display current owner" in Owner field and "You don't have permissions to view or edit this object" in the permissions tab. If I do takeown on a file, I get "Access denied" in return, same with icacls.

How is that possible? What are other methods to get permissions for a file as a local administrator?

Answer 1

If the permissions of the files differ from those of the folder, and if you are the owner of the folder, to make the files inherit their permissions from the folder you could:

• Right-click the folder and choose Properties
• In the Security tab click Advanced
• Check "Replace all child object permission entries with inheritable permission entries from this object"
• Click OK