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I performed a reset on Windows 8.1. On a non-system drive where I keep data, most of the files have an SID related to my user account from the old installation. However, a good number of them have the owner set to Administrators. Ideally I would be able to take ownership of all the files with my old account's SID, and leave the Administrator files alone. However, I can't seem to find a way to selectively perform this action. So I believe my two choices are to take ownership of all the files as my current user account, or to assign ownership to Administrators for all the files.

So, my question is multi-part:

  1. There is no way to take ownership of just the files bearing a certain SID, right?
  2. If the answer to 1 is no, then what practical differences exist between taking ownership of all the files myself, or assigning ownership to Administrators?
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  • You don't have to take ownership. You just need to give yourself full permissions on the files. Just add your new account to the current list of users. "There is no way to take ownership of just the files bearing a certain SID, right?" - Incorrect; You can right a powershell script to do this.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 13, 2016 at 1:27
  • @Ramhound - In this particular situation I think I do need to take ownership; I have a very large Dropbox folder on the drive and while researching the proper way to point Dropbox to my existing folder and avoid downloading all the files, I discovered that some people found that Dropbox creates "conflicted" duplicate copies of files that are not owned by an identifiable user or group. As such, I'm trying to make sure no files are owned by the SID from my old installation's user. I'll have to look into this Powershell script suggestion. Thanks.
    – bubbleking
    Commented Nov 13, 2016 at 1:38
  • So the first step is to remove the invalid user from the ACL then add a valid user.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 13, 2016 at 2:18

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