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How do I restore TrustedInstaller as the owner of the Program Files directory?

How do I restore TrustedInstaller as the owner of the Program Files directory?

Okay, I can see a look of bewilderment on your faces--and this is going to sound super dumb, but before Vista, I used to like to manually install programs into the Program Files directory. Just create a directory named whatever and dump files and/or sub-directories into it, and it was good.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 300
Total answers/comments: 1
bert [Entry]

"This article gives a detailed explanation of the different security levels in Vista. It also mentions the exact SID for the TrustedInstaller, so you could search for this rather then the name when changing the ownership of the Program Files folder.

The Trusted Installer is actually a service, not a user, even though you see permissions granted to it all over the file system.

Service SIDs are not issued from the authorities we have seen before, such as NT AUTHORITY or a domain. The full name for the TrustedInstaller virtual account is NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller and its SID is:

S-1-5-80-956008885-3418522649-1831038044-1853292631-2271478464

I would suggest trying this in Safe Mode.
Basically, you can give ownership back by just typing NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller instead of searching for it."