Reinstalling Windows - retaining users, ownership, groups, permissions

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timmmay

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# 175603 5-Jul-2015 21:09

I've installed W10 again, and I face having to go through every drive (five, though one is a storage spaces mirror) and every folder taking ownership, creating groups, creating users, and changing permissions. Last time it took a fair bit of time and effort, things didn't want to play nice.

Are there any tricks when moving to a new OS? Can I somehow move my users, groups, etc over so I can't have to change the permissions?

Good new though, Crashplan at least lets you adopt your already backed up files on a new computer.

jhsol

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# 1338160 6-Jul-2015 21:22

The problem is that the permissions are for SIDs to the old computer. Because the machine is probably not part of a domain (a Workgroup computer) the SIDs dont exist anymore (your rebuild regenerates new SIDs, even if they are named the same). There is no quick way unfortunately except to take ownership of everything.
A slower method is to copy the items off the drive and on to an external USB drive, format the drive, create new folders with the permissions you want and then copy the items back. As the items are copied back the folder permissions are written into the file. But like i said, this is much slower.

Domain file shares dont exhibit this issue as the SIDs to domain users still exist when you wipe a machine.

MackinNZ

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# 1338179 6-Jul-2015 22:30

TransWiz might help

timmmay

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# 1338236 7-Jul-2015 07:56

Thanks guys. Time and time again it seems like having a domain controller suitable for home use would come in really helpful. I guess I'll just change all my permissions again - that's far easier than copying multi TB of data around. I just found last time things didn't go that smoothly, and when you want both the old and new windows install to work at the same time things can get a bit messy.

timbosan

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# 1338303 7-Jul-2015 09:17

timmmay: Thanks guys. Time and time again it seems like having a domain controller suitable for home use would come in really helpful. I guess I'll just change all my permissions again - that's far easier than copying multi TB of data around. I just found last time things didn't go that smoothly, and when you want both the old and new windows install to work at the same time things can get a bit messy.

I run Server 2012R2 at home, and it is MUCH easier storing all the data on server, so a client rebuild is just OS and apps. Plus if you use the Essentials role on 2012R2 and install the Client Connector on your clients, your client machines get backed up to the server, and you can do bare-metal restores from these backups. Great for trying out a new OS like Windows 10, as you can revert back at any time to the last backup. (and you can backup the client backups to an external HDD for added protection).

timmmay

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# 1338349 7-Jul-2015 10:43

Then I'd have to buy another computer and a server license... don't think that's going to happen unfortunately. I guess I'll just put up with it.

timbosan

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# 1338353 7-Jul-2015 10:45

If you have MSDN, or are part of the Partner Network, or are a student, you can get a 'free or cheap for home use/development' license. But otherwise yeah, it will cost $$$$

ubergeeknz

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Vocus

# 1338364 7-Jul-2015 11:03

Didn't you ask a similar question previously?

http://superuser.com/questions/439675/how-to-bind-old-users-sid-to-new-user-to-remain-ntfs-file-ownership-and-permiss

This might help

timmmay

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# 1338366 7-Jul-2015 11:07

Similar ish maybe, not quite the same. Thanks for the link, I was really hoping for a quick easy trick someone knew, I'll probably just have to redo all permissions on the drives. It takes hours and I often have to have a few goes because I don't get it right the first time, so in the end it takes days.

ubergeeknz

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# 1338370 7-Jul-2015 11:18

Really sounds like your file permissions are a bit too complicated for a home setup :P

timmmay

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# 1338371 7-Jul-2015 11:21

It's not too bad, I think the old system had a bunch of things that had evolved over the years, it's simpler now. Administrators have full access, standard users have read access to shared resources and write access to their own private resources. I think a few folders like backups or media have different permissions.

nathan

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# 1338402 7-Jul-2015 12:08

Sounds like those perms could be setup in a few mins

If you have more than a handful of users you could script it otherwise its probably faster manually

timmmay

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# 1338439 7-Jul-2015 12:32

I think the problem last time was permissions were different all over the drive, inheritance wasn't set up, and I didn't know what I was doing. I guess I'll takeown then use ICACLS a few times in different directories. For large directory trees with heaps of files it can take hours to run. The trick will be to not prevent access to the old OS while giving access to the new OS.

timmmay

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# 1338772 7-Jul-2015 17:43

Tried to take ownership the simple way, using explorer permissions, it says failed to enumerate objects in the container, access denied. Annoying internet is down so difficult to research.

Takwown doesn't provide a way to sign ownership to a specified local group as far as I can see, so it's a two step process. It will take hours to run, then hours to run again to set to that group.

andrewNZ

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# 1338791 7-Jul-2015 17:50

From the web

Here is how I solved my issue -
1. On the root folder, right click, select properties, select security tab.
2. Click Advanced
3. The window that pops up should show the current owner. Click "Change." The "Select User or Group" pop up box appears.
4. In the text box, type in your current user name (you should be an admin), and hit the "Check Names" button. Your name will be replaced with the "official" system name (i.e.,preceded by computer name and back slash).
5. Click OK
6. The box disappears, sending you back to the Advanced Security Settings window.
7. A new tick box appears below owner, with the text "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" Select this tick box.
8. I also selected the tick box "Replace all child object permission entries with inheritable permission entries from this object", but I think I had to run this twice - once with this box ticked and once without.
9. Make sure that "everyone" appears on the Permission entries window, if not, click add. The same box that appears in step 4 shows up again. Type everyone, click "Check Names" and then "OK"
9. Hit apply

I also see that the folder ownership can be changed to "everyone" - I haven't tried changing all my folder owners to this, but doing so might eliminate this issue altogether if the drive is moved to a different computer.

Hope this helps someone, this problem and lack of documentation was quite aggravating.

Location: Dunedin

timmmay

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# 1338821 7-Jul-2015 18:51

Thanks, but that didn't work, had to use command line.