I have broken W 10 by trying to take ownership of C:\ please help!

Ok so earlier I did something completely stupid, I tried to take ownership of C:\ in user permissions and changed from trustedinstalller to my username as I was having admin privilege problems and nothing was working.

Well turns out that is a very bad idea (the other site I read this on gave no warning for doing it on C:\) and now, whilst windows is working and all my files still remain, I cannot use the start bar, Microsoft edge won't even open and the start button won't work either I also had a warning that recycle bin had corrupted but that seems to be fixed now for some reason.

Now, failing there being a way to fix this (I have yet to find a fix despite numerous searches on google and the ones I have found won't work) I am probably looking at a reset of the OS :-(.

Now this is where I need help, I don't want to have to reinstall a bunch of steam games or setup my game emulators again, I also I don't want to have to lose my files folders and installed programs like my custom Intel rapid storage tech which is the only one that doesn't give me bluescreens.

Is there anyway I can literally backup all my data and then reinstall! windows and then run the backup so it all goes back to exactly how it was before? With all my reg edits and old files, all my saved windows setting etc?

Or is there a way I can repair windows without losing anything? Literally just a repair of windows itself and all my programs and files and folders will stay in tact?

Please help!

If you have setup System Restore Points then the simplest approach is to restore to a point in time before you made the changes to your C:\ drive.

System Restore Windows 10

philc43 said:

If you have setup System Restore Points then the simplest approach is to restore to a point in time before you made the changes to your C:\ drive.

System Restore Windows 10

Unfortunately there was no restore points despite the fact that I only made one the day before and there was none before that either.

Could I try and use media creation tool tto possibly fix it?
.

The best way to repair windows without losing anything is to do an in-place upgrade. Follow the tutorial below:

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

philc43 said:

The best way to repair windows without losing anything is to do an in-place upgrade. Follow the tutorial below:

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Going to attempt it now using media creation tool, wish me luck. Is it probably best to back all my files up with something like easetodo before hand on a seperate hard drive?

Phil0sophy said:

Going to attempt it now using media creation tool, wish me luck. Is it probably best to back all my files up with something like easetodo before hand on a seperate hard drive?

No-one will ever tell you not to make a backup :)

However I've done dozens of in-place upgrades in Windows 10 and never had a problem losing anything.

Note that in-place upgrade will only replace your C:\Windows directory. It will not fix "C:\Program Files" and so on. It is a (I think fairly major) risk to have these other directories with the wrong permissions especially if you granted full authority. There is a reason that directories containing programs are read only.

If I was you I would backup my data, scrap the lot and do a clean install. It only takes a few hours unless you have a huge number of extra programs to re-install and at least you will be certain all is OK.

Alternatively you can try to reset your other permissions (in addition to the posts above there are some instructions here) but I would never be 100% sure that they are correct and covered everything. In particular there is a new group in Windows 10 (perhaps also in 8, I can't remember) called APPLICATION PACKAGE AUTHORITY\ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES which is used to grant authority to the new Metro style apps. No steps or tools I've read about to reset permissions seem to cover this group at all.

Just started getting "The recycle bin on c:\ is corrupt" again, to hell with it, I am doing a clean install, seems like more work than it needs to be trying to fix things.

Phil0sophy said:

so I guess my question is now, can I fix these apps? Or is that what you are describing above when you say about permissions not being fixable on windows apps?

I'm not saying you can't. Just I don't know how and the thing is that you might spend ages looking into all this and then give up and clean install or (if you are happy with it) just using the new account that works. I've spent days faffing around in this sort of situation before admitting defeat.

There are a couple of things you could look into though (this is not exhaustive of course)...

1. C:\Program Files\WindowsApps must have authority for the ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group. (this is where the apps you describe reside). Assuming you only changed ownership of directories and didn't mess with DCOM permissions this may be the solution. The owner of this directory should be TrustedInstaller , the contents should grant read and execute and list to ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES group.
   
2. %localappdata% contains a directory called TileDataLayer which has a database containing your start menu layout and (as far as I can figure out) authority to individual modern apps. You could try copying the whole directory from another account. See here Solved Resetting Win 10 Start Menu - Windows 10 Forums. It should be owned by your profile so you'd have to change it after if you do that.
   
3. %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Counters.dat file corruption often causes a problem for Edge. You can sign on another account and delete it (See here Solved Problems downloading with Edge - Page 4 - Windows 10 Forums). It should be owned by your profile and ALL APPPLICATION PACKAGES needs read & execute

You may have better luck than me (or just enjoy it - I do) but you could have done a clean install in this time anyway.

That is what I (eventually) ended up doing after messing up all my permissions :)

If however you want to go along with fixing it and are not sure what permissions a certain directory should have just ask and I'll check it for you.