any impact of I change owner of a folder?

Hello everyone,

If I change the owner for a folder (under C:\windows\system32) to administrator. Any negative impacts to system and application funtionality?

thanks in advance, George

From serverfault George2

• The "feature" you're butting heads with is Windows Resource Protection, added initially in Windows Vista. In this case, it's an ACL that, in previous version of Windows, granted "Administrators" "Full Control" permission but, in Vista and newer versions, prevents "Administrators" from modifying the ACL on the "%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc" folder itself.

  Odds are good that making the change in ownership, so long as you don't mess with the "SYSTEM" and "TrustedInstaller" permissions, probably won't cause operational issues. I just verified with a Windows 7-based PC that HOSTS-based name resolution continues to work with the owner of the "...\etc" folder changed to "Administrators" and the "Administrators" permission set to "Full Control".

  I've read your other questions, and I see that you're trying to manipulate the HOSTS file programmatically. I'd strongly caution you not to do what you're trying at all. In this day and age, there's no good argument for using HOSTS file-based name resolution for anything. Run a DNS server and make your changes there. If you need to "override" your production DNS for a "test environment" put up a second DNS server that hosts authoritative zones for any RRs that need to be "overridden".

  You can "diagnose DNS issues" with tools like "nslookup", win32 ports of dig, and sniffers. Using HOSTS file-based name resolution isn't a useful method for "diagnosing DNS issues".

  Making this change to stock folder permissions puts your machine(s) into a non-default state that Microsoft may not test for in deployment of future updates. While things appear to "work" today that's no guarantee that future updates won't cause problems because of assumptions in system folder permissions that such updates might make.

  George2 : Cool, question answered!
  From Evan Anderson