takeown command problems !

Question

Hey everyone. First post, poppin' the old forum cherry... moving right along... I was messing around trying to get rid of a file on my laptop (make doesn't really matter because it's just general os trouble) and Windows 7 was being its usual self saying I couldn't delete the file for lack of appropriate permissions. Now, I've used /takeown /f before, just not on windows 7, and I'm not TOTALLY sure what I did, but it was something like /takeown /f C:\ username and then a cacls /g username type deal... it applied to my whole C:\ folder, and well, now I can't access any .exe's running from my program files, I get an error saying that 'Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.' What I suspect happened is when I used the takeown command I must have told windows to only let my user access the program files, and now trustedinstaller / administrator can't access them... anything that needs to be run as an administrator either just starts the loading circle on my mouse without doing anything, or gives me the error above. I haven't seen the trustedinstaller popup in ages. In addition to this, since I've had these problems, my trackpad stops responding when I try to scroll, but a USB mouse works perfectly. I tried updating drivers etc. but it still didn't work. Not sure whether this is associated or not with the administrative problem (do you have to be an administrator to scroll with the touchpad ? XD) but figured it's worth mentioning. I'm really awkward with phones so I figured I'd post on here before going to the tech support line. ANY help on how to undo the takeown command and restore the original ownership to my C:\ drive would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you :D ~FL!CK edit: I just noticed this : all my folders created before this incident now have a little lock on them. O_o also of note, I tried to system restore to before the problem, but it didn't fix anything, and I had to go to safe mode for system restore to even show me restore points (it just failed to load outside of safe mode)

talflick · Answer

bump ?

Windows General

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