Revert Ownership To TrustedInstaller

This Doc only applies to Windows Vista/7 or later

We sometimes come into cases where we should take ownership of certain System Files right..??? Well, in case of certain system files, some may be already noticed that the default ownership goes to ‘TRUSTED INSTALLER’. You also be noticed that after altering the ownership one couldn’t revert to the original owner, which is ‘TRUSTED INSTALLER’ as in this case. We can’t even search Trusted Installer as in the normal way too. So now you would ask that, what if we don’t reverse the ownership to default values???? The answer is simple. The ownership is given to Trusted Installer for security purposes so that the ‘Verified Windows Installer’ could only change the file but not the Standard Users nor even the Admins. Even though there’re viruses which overcome this barrier but it’s better to restore the ownership back to normal. So what we do now..??? No problems, there’re two methods. One is lengthy GUI (Graphical User Interface) way & the other, short & sweet CLI (Command Line Interface) way. You are free to choose either one of them according to your tastes.

GUI Way

1. Right mouse button click on the file and choose Properties.
2. Click Security tab.
3. Click Advanced button.
4. Click Owner tab.
5. Click Edit button.
6. Click Other User or Group and type in NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller.
7. Press Ok on all dialogs until all property dialogs are closed

CLI Way

icacls "%windir%\winsxs\Catalogs" /setowner "NT Service\TrustedInstaller" /T /C

Extra Snippet...!!

If you want to acquire ownership to yours User Account in an easy way rather than the typical GUI, use CLI tool ‘TAKEOWN.exe’.

Usage: TAKEOWN /U username /P password /F filename

For the complete syntax, Type ‘TAKEOWN /?’ in CMD.

Collected & Organised by: Robin Mathew Rajan

Contact by Email: fahimsrider@gmail.com / vasasikkha@gmail.com