Context Menu - Take Ownership

How to Add Take Ownership to the Context Menu in Vista​

   Information

This will add Take Ownership to the Context (right click) menu for all folders, files, and drives in Vista and Windows 7.

Application files, (EX: EXE, CMD, MSI) will still have Run as administrator instead of Take Ownership in the context menu.

When you use take ownership on a folder, it will take ownership of all the files and subfolders inside the folder to.

   Tip

• To manually take ownership of items in Vista, see: How to Take Ownership of a Item in Vista
• To restore TrustedInstaller as the owner for a protected system resource, see: How to Restore TrustedInstaller as Owner of a File in Vista

   Warning

This Take Ownership context menu item needs to be used while logged on to an administrator account for it work.

EXAMPLE: Before and After Context Menus

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STEP ONE

Add or Remove Take Ownership

1. To Add Take Ownership​

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A) Click on the Download button below to download the file below.​

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Add_Take_Ownership.reg​

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B) Go to step 3.​

2. To Remove Take Ownership​

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A) Click on the Download button below to download the file below.​

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Remove_Take_Ownership.reg​

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3. Click on Save, and save the .reg file to the Desktop.​

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4. Right click on the downloaded .reg file and click on Merge.​

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5. Click on Run, Continue (UAC-Vista) or Yes (UAC-Windows 7), Yes, and OK when prompted.​

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6. When done, you can delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.​

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   Tip

After you have taking ownership of the file, you may still need to "Allow" your user account "Full Control" of the file before you will have full permission to access it. See steps 11 to 22 in the tutorial below for how.

   Tip

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Take Ownership of file - Vista Forums​

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STEP TWO

How to Use Take Ownership

1. Right click on a folder, file, or drive.​

NOTE: When you use Take Ownership on a folder, it will take ownership of all the files and subfolders within that folder to.​

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   Warning

Do not take ownership of the drive that you have Windows installed on. If you do, you will end up having to reinstall Windows.

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2. Click on Take Ownership. (See Example at top)​

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3. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.​

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4. You will see a command window pop-up and then go away when it's finished. (See example screenshot below)​

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5. The folder or file has been taken ownership of.​

NOTE:​

A) You can verify from METHOD TWO step 7 here: How to Take Ownership of a Item in Vista​

B) It will have your user name listed as the owner.​

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   Tip

After you have taking ownership of the file, you may still need to "Allow" your user account "Full Control" of the file before you will have full permission to access it. See steps 11 to 22 in the tutorial below for how.

   Tip

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Take Ownership of file - Vista Forums​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Expand the Context (Shortcuts) Menu in Vista
• How to Customize the Context Menu for the Start Menu in Vista
• How to Customize the Send To Context Menu in Vista
• How to Customize the Recycle Bin Context Menu in Vista
• How to Add Encrypt and Decrypt to the Context Menu in Vista
• How to Add and Remove a New Menu Item in Vista
• How to Add COPY TO FOLDER and MOVE TO FOLDER to the Context Menu in Vista
• How to Take Ownership of a Item in Vista
• How to Restore the Search Context Menu Item after Installing the Vista SP1
• How to Add Flip 3D to the Context Menu in Vista
• How to Restore or Remove New from the Context Menu in Vista
• How to Enable or Disable the Context Menu in Vista
• How to Restore or Remove the Security Tab in Vista
• How to Remove or Show Drives in the Vista and Windows 7 "Send To" Context Menu
• How to Add View and Print File Directory to the Context Menu in Vista
• How to Add or Remove Copy as Path from the Vista Context Menu
• How to Add or Remove Send To from the Vista Context Menu
• How to Add or Remove Turn Aero On or Off from the Vista Context Menu
• How to Add System Properties to Computer Context Menu in Vista
• How to Restore TrustedInstaller as Owner of a File in Vista
• How to Restore or Remove "Restore Previous Versions" from the Vista Context Menu
• How to Add Empty Folder and Subfolders to the Vista Context Menu

 

[Brink]

Hello Roy, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Have you already tried this tutorial?

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/130137-cannot-rename-move-file-folder-vista-fix.html


Do you get any error messages while trying to do these actions?

Have you tried refreshing the window or restarting the computer to see if it was just a ghost file?

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn

 

[twf498]

I've downloaded/used your Automated Method. So far, so good. I hope it'll continue to work as needed.
Thx.

 

[Brink]

Your welcome twf498, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Shawn

 

[felipeoliva]

Hey Brink thanks for the tutorial it works great, it resolve a big problem for me!!

 

[Brink]

Your welcome Felipeoliva, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Shawn

 

[coffeeholic]

Hello Brink,

First of all, thanks for the great tool you provided!

I have a problem, I need to give a program permition to delete a file in a folder within system32, but the program cannot delete the file even after I take ownership of the file.

I can delete the file manually, but It would really help if the program (vray in 3d studio max) could delete it because for every scene I render through my renderfarm I have to delete this file manually in all my render nodes.

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks!

 

[Brink]

Hi Coffeeholic, and welcome to Vista Forums.

You might see if using Compatibillity Mode (Step 8 in tutorial below) with the program running as administrator will allow it to delete the file.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/75909-compatibility-mode.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[coffeeholic]

Wow, what a fast response :D

I tried to set the option, but it's grayed out, like the screenshots on the thread.

If it helps, this is the error the log of the program gives:

[2008/Sep/25|11:04:57] warning: Failed to delete server scene file "C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsmax\2009 - 64bit\enu\temp\vray_server_scene_1.max"

 

[Brink]

That means that the program is a 64 bit program then. You might have the files in that folder located in one of your user folders instead if they are not system files and just files you have used with that program. The program should be able to delete them then.


If these are system files, then you can try manually setting the program to run as administrator, using the full path of that programs's exe file and the registry, to see if it will be allowed to afterwards. This tutorial will show you how to.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/63998-compatibility-mode-list-programs.html

 

[Mizley]

Thank you so much for this program it will come in useful. I am running into a problem though. I take control of a folder and it still will not allow me to save to it. I am trying to save some screen savers into the windows system32 folder and it still states I do not have permission. What can I do or what am I doing wrong? I followed your instructions and it states I took control but I dont have control. Thanks for any information you can provide.

Edit: I found out what the problem was. though there is one user created on this computer and I am the admin it was treating me as a seperate user with no admin rights. I had to maually set myself as a user with full system rights. Thanks anyway.

 

[Brink]

Hello Mizley, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted out. When you are moving a file to a system area, you might also right click on the file and click on Properties to check and see if there is a Unblock button. If there is, click on it to unblock the file so that it will be allowed to be copied over to a system area. This is a common problem that happens sometimes to.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Mizley]

Thank you for all the tips. you are very knowledgable

 

[Brink]

Your welcome Mizley.

 

[coffeeholic]

If these are system files, then you can try manually setting the program to run as administrator, using the full path of that programs's exe file and the registry, to see if it will be allowed to afterwards. This tutorial will show you how to.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/63998-compatibility-mode-list-programs.html

Wow, that solved it!

Thanks a lot Shawn!

 

[Brink]

Your welcome Coffeeholic.

64 bit programs are suppose to be this way by default, that is why they have their Compatibilty Mode tab area grayed out. Sometimes they just do not properly write the program for Vista and we have to do it manually though.

 

[pclove]

It seems I am having some issues with my right-click context menu.

I think it got f'ed up along the way, but
1. When I right-click the reg file to merge, there is no merge there, and
2. When I double-click the reg file, it asks me for verification to add the reg file to the registry but it doesn't add anything to my right-click context.

Any ideas what may be the problem with my right-click menu? I need this take ownership tweak and I can't (don't want to) start over with a reinstall. All that work of reinstalling apps...damn.

Please help, you are the Vista homie.

By the way, I'm on Ultimate x64 with too much crap installed to list here. I think TweakVI may be the culprit responsible.

 

[Brink]

Hello Pclove,

Without Merge in the context menu, it seems that the .reg file extension may have the wrong program associated to it.


Double check in Default Programs to make sure that the .reg file extension has the Current Default program set as Registry Editor (C:\Windows\regedit.exe). If you needed to change it, then try the merge again with the REG file.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[tyronebuchanan]

Hi,

When I reinstalled Vista I had a folder in the Program Folder called Windows Mail.

This program was no longer of use to me because it had the Hotmail access option stopped - a window popped up to inform me that this was the case. This change was no doubt under pressure of MSN which has now pressured all email clients to end this service.

I had the previous version of this program on a memory stick, however. I temporarily changed the name of the Windows Mail folder. This allowed me to install the earlier version.

The earlier version created a folder called Windows Live with two sub-folders: "installer" and "Mail".

Although I could use the earlier version 2008 (Build 12.0.1606), I still had the old folder remaining which was annoying.

Your method 1 worked for me in that I removed the folder. But you should inform others that it is necessary to download both To Add Take Ownership and To Remove Take Ownership then right click "Merge" on both of them to make it work.

Yours,
Ty

 

[Brink]

Hello Ty,

I'm not sure what you are trying to say, but if you do both the reg files in a row, then you will simply just add "Take Ownership" to the context menu and then turn around and remove it. I do not see the point. :huh:

As for Windows Mail, it sounds like you installed Windows Live Mail (WLM) the very hard way instead of just through the installer. There is no need to mess with Windows Mail since you can just make WLM the default after installing it.

 

[BleepingCrazy]

Hi Shawn,

I was just trying to 7-zip *a certain selection* of preset files inside my adobe program folder. I got an error from 7-zip saying "Cannot open file"....i know that take ownership works perfect when I use it on the containing folder. but is there a way to add it so that its present on selected files also?

(I had a job last week working on multiple audio files inside multiple audio folders...it was a pain because some were fine, some were not...ownership wise)

is there a way to have a consistant "take ownership" in the context menu? thanks