Take Ownership of Registry Key & Assign Permissions Using Command-line

We’ve seen how to use the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) to change ownership of a registry key and subkeys. And, we’ve also covered how to reset the permissions of a registry key or delete stubborn keys using RegASSASSIN. This article tells you how to change registry key ownership and grant permissions using command-line.

Windows has the takeown.exe and icacls.exe console utilities to change file/folder ownership and permissions, but there are no such built-in tools for changing the registry key ownership using command-line. You’ll need a third-party tool named SetACL for the task.

SetACL -on objectname -ot objecttype -actn action

Take Ownership of Registry Key & Assign Permissions Using Command-line

To change registry key ownership and permissions using SetACL:

1. Download SetACL, unzip the contents to a folder.
2. Copy the appropriate version of setacl.exe (32-bit vs 64-bit) of the tool to a folder — e.g., d:\tools.
3. Let’s say you want to change ownership of the registry branch HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160} and to grant the Administrators group full control permissions. Run these two commands from an admin Command Prompt window:

   SetACL.exe -on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160}" -ot reg -actn setowner -ownr "n:Administrators"
   SetACL.exe -on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160}" -ot reg -actn ace -ace "n:Administrators;p:full"

   

   • The 1st command sets Administrators group as the owner of the key
   • The 2nd command assigns the Administrators group Full Control permissions for the key.

The Administrators group owns the key and its subkeys, and also has full control permissions, which you can check using the Registry Editor.

Important: For changing the ownership and permissions for this key and subkeys, add the -rec Yes argument at the end. See illustration below for more information.

Error when changing registry key permissions?

SetACL reports the following error when attempting to change the permissions for a file/folder or a registry key for which you don’t have access to. To prevent this error, make sure you first take ownership of the key before changing its permissions.

Take Ownership & Assign Permissions Recursively (this key & subkeys)

To change ownership and grant full control permission (to Administrators) for the specified key along with its subkeys, include the -rec Yes switch at the end, as given below:

SetACL.exe -on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160}" -ot reg -actn setowner -ownr "n:Administrators" -rec Yes
SetACL.exe -on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160}" -ot reg -actn ace -ace "n:Administrators;p:full" -rec Yes

Set TrustedInstaller as the owner

To set TrustedInstaller as the owner of the above registry key and assign it full control permissions recursively, use the same command-line syntax. You only need to change the account/group name. Here are the commands you need to run this time:

SetACL.exe -on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160}" -ot reg -actn setowner -ownr "n:nt service\trustedinstaller" -rec Yes
SetACL.exe -on "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D63B10C5-BB46-4990-A94F-E40B9D520160}" -ot reg -actn ace -ace "n:"nt service\trustedinstaller";p:full" -rec Yes

After running the above command sets TrustedInstaller (NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller) as the owner of the key and subkeys.

Additional Information

• Microsoft’s SubInACL: There is also another console tool named SubInACL released by Microsoft during the Windows XP-era. It’s part of the Windows XP/2003 Resource Kit Tools. SubInACL can be used to set ownership and permissions for files/folders and registry. However, as SubInACL has been discontinued by Microsoft and it defaults to 32-bit file and registry paths (on Windows 64-bit systems) which makes it unusable in 64-bit versions of Windows in some situations.
• Microsoft’s Regini.exe: You have another built-in console tool named regini.exe which lets you change the registry permissions using a text-based file. However, regini.exe can’t change the ownership of a registry key. For more information on regini.exe, open a Command Prompt window and type regini.exe /?
• Helge Klein’s SetACL is widely recommended tool and it certainly has filled the void left by SubInACL and also addresses the shortcomings of regini.exe. SetACL can do many more things than what’s discussed in this article.

See SetACL documentation for more details: SetACL Command Line-Version (SetACL.exe) – Syntax and Description.