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Seanchán Torpéist
Asked: 2009-08-28 08:40:34 +0800 CST

Can I see Folder Permissions on Windows in a Tree View?

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Is there a way to see folder/file permissions in a collapsable tree view in Windows?

What I think I need is something like:

+ folder1 - EntAdmins[RWX],JoeBloggs[R--],Administrators[RWX]]
+ folder2 - EntAdmins[RWX],JoeBloggs[RWX],JoesWife[R--]Administrators[RWX]]

And so on for lots of folders.

Ideally the tool would do something like below; when the "+" is clicked:

- folder1
|---+ Subfolder1 - EntAdmins[RWX],JoeBloggs[R--],Administrators[RWX]]
|---+ Subfolder2 - EntAdmins[RWX],JoeBloggs[R--],Administrators[RWX]]
|
+ folder2 - EntAdmins[RWX],JoeBloggs[RWX],JoesWife[R--]Administrators[RWX]]

Does something like this exist for Windows? I need to scan hundreds of folders for their permissions and would prefer not to do the right click and "Properties | Security | Advanced" just to see the permissions.

windows security utilities file-permissions

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    AccessEnum from Microsoft Sysinternals does most of what you requested. It does not however have the facility to drill down, but it's a very useful tool nonetheless.

    Give it a try!

    AccessEnum Screenshot
    (source: microsoft.com)

    • 6

  2. My tool SetACL Studio does exactly what you want. It has a tree view on the left and displays owner and permissions in the main area on the right:

    enter image description here

    As you can see, it even works with different object types: file system, registry, printers, services, shares, and WMI objects. You can change permissions, too, of course. And it has undo.

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  3. You may be able to do something similar to what you're talking about in Windows Powershell using the following command line:

    dir -recurse | where { $_.PSIsContainer -eq "TRUE" } | get-acl

    Optionally, you could pipe the output to a file like this:

    dir -recurse | where { $_.PSIsContainer -eq "TRUE" } | get-acl | out-file "C:\report.txt"
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