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Technology Advice by Ryan Taylor Adams

Take Ownership of Windows Vista Files with Right-Click

December 29th, 2008 · No Comments · Printer Friendly Version

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Windows Vista has a particularly nasty habit of preventing a user from accessing a file they really should have access to. I personally have received “Access Denied” error messages when attempting to delete files I created only seconds earlier. Vista also (intentionally) prevents you from making changes to certain system files, such as the HOSTS file.

In any case, the following download will give you the ability to “take ownership” of almost any file, and there-after have unrestricted access to it.


  1. Download this file to your desktop.
  2. Double-click on the downloaded file.
  3. Respond in the affirmative to any prompts.

Now when ever you right-click on a file or folder, the context menu will have an option to “Take Ownership.”

*This file was created by me in early 2007. Since then, it has been replicated by many others and posted on numerous sites. All the ones I’ve looked at appear to be exactly the same. Undoubtedly, some are direct copies of the file I originally created. However, I also believe many other Windows enthousiasts arrived at the same results on their own.