Administrator Of Another Windows NT Has Access to NTFS Files (147770)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51
This article was previously published under Q147770
The NTFS file system stores permissions for files and directories as attributes in the file system. Any installation of Windows NT on the local computer has access to these files. Although each copy of Windows NT that is running recognizes the permissions assigned in the file system, any user who is a member of the local Administrators group in a Windows NT installation can take ownership of files and access the data.

Although the NTFS file system offers more security features than FAT, a new installation of Windows NT can be used to boot the system, if the primary boot partition is NTFS. This allows the members of the Administrators group full rights to all files in the NTFS partition.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:12/16/2003
Keywords:KB147770
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