Member of Administrator Group in Windows is Displaying Administrators as Owner

Question

Currently (and by default, I suppose), when a member of the Administrator group in Windows creates a file, the Administrators group has ownership of that file. How can I go about changing the default to display the actual username of the member of the Admin group in that file's ownership tab, rather than manually assigning it?

Answer 1

Commenters here might not have understood that one might want this. But Microsoft did. There's been a local/group policy setting in Windows since Windows NT 5.2 ("XP" and "Server 2003") that controls this. Just flip the setting and restart. It is named Default owner for objects created by members of the administrators group.

Note that the versions of Windows where this is in fact the default, as you describe it in the question (without, of course, giving the version of Windows you are using), are those prior to the introduction of User Account Control in Windows NT 6. With User Account Control, the default is for administrators get a filtered process token with only standard user rights and the behaviour described doesn't happen. Standard user tokens cause the creator/owner to be the standard user SID. To get the non-default behaviour, one has to explicitly use the full administrator process token, such as by giving consent at a UAC elevation prompt for example, or by disabling UAC.

Further reading

• "System objects: Default owner for objects created by members of the administrators group". Windows XP Professional Product documentation. Microsoft corporation.
• Jan De Clerq (2008-10-07). "Take Control of Windows Object Ownership and Inheritance". Windows IT Pro.
• A Group Policy setting is not available in the security policy settings list on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008. MSKB 947721. KnowledgeBase. Microsoft corporation.