A member of the Administrators group can take ownership of an object or transfer ownership to another user or group-even if administrators are locked out of the resource according to the permissions. The current owner of an object can transfer ownership to another user or group. Ownership can be taken or transferred in several ways. This makes the file or folder owner important with respect to what permissions are allowed or denied for a given resource. Although members of the Administrators group and other authorized users also have the right to allow or deny access, the owner has the authority to lock out non-administrator users, and then the only way to regain access to the resource is for an administrator or a member of the Restore Operators group to take ownership of it. The owner of an object (ex: file, folder, drive, or registry key) has the right to allow or deny access to that resource. No matter what permissions are set on an object, the owner of the object can always change the permissions. By default, the owner is the creator of the object.
How to Change Owner of File, Folder, Drive, or Registry Key in Windows 10Īn owner is assigned to an object when that object is created.