Add Take Ownership to Context Menu in Windows 10  

mike406 said:

Hello, I'm a software engineer and use take ownership quite often in my line of work and noticed a slight quirk/issue with the way you have the ICACLS command set up. When I use your Take Ownership from the context menu, while it recursively does takeown properly, it only applies the ICACLS command to the root folder and not for subdirectories. So what happens is even after Take Ownership is ran, the user can still encounter this popup on sub-directories:
https://i.gyazo.com/a8d0910adaca75b6...7cd9920557.png

The issue is that the OWNER RIGHTS group doesn't get added to subdirectories. This is because the /t flag is missing from ICACLS and should be added to your registry file for this to work properly. I'm not sure if it worked without the /t flag on older versions of Windows but this is how it needs to be done on Windows 10 at least to mitigate that popup. While omitting the /t flag doesn't hinder the user from entering the folder as they can click Continue on the popup, it becomes annoying when dealing with deeply rooted subdirectories.

Screenshot of a sub-directory's permissions after your Take Ownership is run from the root: https://i.gyazo.com/7637a10a85f01867...0873ad5eca.png

Screenshot of the same sub-directory after I added the /t flag to ICACLS: https://i.gyazo.com/dead81d6a585e9d4...ab6a772f89.png

Hope you will take this into consideration.

Thank you @mike406, and welcome to Ten Forums. :)

I have updated the tutorial to have the /t flag included for the ICACLS commands now.

@Brink

Shawn, thanks for the update to this tutorial.

Question.... The version of "Take Ownership" I have installed is very old (Apr 2014) and the .reg is named "InstallTakeOwnership".

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"

The new version here is called "Add_Take_Ownership_to_context_menu" and is quite different, using Powershell instead of CMD and is much more extensive than just the /t switch addition.

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Created by: Shawn Brink
; Created on: January 28th 2015
; Updated on: February 16th 2018
; Tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3841-add-take-ownership-context-menu-windows-10-a.html



[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\TakeOwnership]
@="Take Ownership"
"HasLUAShield"=""
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
"Position"="middle"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\TakeOwnership\command]
@="powershell -windowstyle hidden -command \"Start-Process cmd -ArgumentList '/c takeown /f \\\"%1\\\" && icacls \\\"%1\\\" /grant *S-1-3-4:F /t /c /l' -Verb runAs\""
"IsolatedCommand"= "powershell -windowstyle hidden -command \"Start-Process cmd -ArgumentList '/c takeown /f \\\"%1\\\" && icacls \\\"%1\\\" /grant *S-1-3-4:F /t /c /l' -Verb runAs\""



[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\TakeOwnership]
@="Take Ownership"
"AppliesTo"="NOT (System.ItemPathDisplay:=\"C:\\Users\" OR System.ItemPathDisplay:=\"C:\\ProgramData\" OR System.ItemPathDisplay:=\"C:\\Windows\" OR System.ItemPathDisplay:=\"C:\\Windows\\System32\" OR System.ItemPathDisplay:=\"C:\\Program Files\" OR System.ItemPathDisplay:=\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\")"
"HasLUAShield"=""
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""
"Position"="middle"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\TakeOwnership\command]
@="powershell -windowstyle hidden -command \"Start-Process cmd -ArgumentList '/c takeown /f \\\"%1\\\" /r /d y && icacls \\\"%1\\\" /grant *S-1-3-4:F /t /c /l /q' -Verb runAs\""
"IsolatedCommand"="powershell -windowstyle hidden -command \"Start-Process cmd -ArgumentList '/c takeown /f \\\"%1\\\" /r /d y && icacls \\\"%1\\\" /grant *S-1-3-4:F /t /c /l /q' -Verb runAs\""

My question is, is it necessary (or wise) to run the "Remove_Take_Ownership_from_context_menu" .reg before merging the new one?

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Created by: Shawn Brink
; Created on: January 28th 2015
; Updated on: June 18th 2017
; Tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3841-add-take-ownership-context-menu-windows-10-a.html


; To remove old Take Ownership context menu
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\runas]


; To remove newer current Take Ownership context menu
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\TakeOwnership]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\TakeOwnership]

Thanks, TC.

f14tomcat said:

...My question is, is it necessary (or wise) to run the "Remove_Take_Ownership_from_context_menu" .reg before merging the new one?

Thanks, TC.

Good question. I didn't give it any thought and just ran the new version. Seems to work without any issues though.

CWGilley said:

Good question. I didn't give it any thought and just ran the new version. Seems to work without any issues though.

Thanks, Clayton. Just being digitally paranoid, I guess!

f14tomcat said:

Thanks, Clayton. Just being digitally paranoid, I guess!

I AM NOT paranoid! Why are you people all against me?

CWGilley said:

I AM NOT paranoid! Why are you people all against me?

Me, Clayton, me! Not you! :)

Hello Guys, :)

Yeah, you would want to run the old remove .reg file for the old version since it's under the "runas" key, and the new one isn't.

OK, I just ran the new Remove and then the new Add after which the thought occurred, should I have ran the OLD Remove?

That's fine. The new.remove will still remove the old version.