Wow, I didn't think this I'd get in a mess like this. I really, really hope I can fix this issue. I was in Win 7 RC 1 and needed some info on my XP partition. I noticed I could see and go into my XP partition. When I Explored my XP partition, Win 7 said I needed to take ownership. I thought this would only affect ownership on my Win 7 partition. Boy, I was wrong. I have whole folders like My Documents and Application Data that I can't use in XP now. I am denied access and can't take ownership back in XP (that I know of...there's no Security tab in Properties of the folders). I've tried to undo what I did in Win 7, but to no avail. Is there anyway to give up ownership of directories and files in Win 7 (Win 7 doesn't know anything about my XP admin)? Anyway in XP to get ownership back? I'm kinda stuck. :(

You will have to boot into XP for this. As the user of XP is unknown in Windows 7 there is no way to do it from there.Boot in XP.If there is no security tab in XP that means that you have simple file sharing enabled in explorer. You will have to go to folder options and disable that. After that you should be able to take ownership through the security tab.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-usArjan

Hello Experts, I have a similar problem: I have tree winchester in one computer, one of with XP, and the second with Win7 and the third one is a backup. When I booted from the XP, I cannot access the Win7 & Backup winchesters. And I have to take ownership of folders ... After that I booted from Win7 and I cannot access the XP & Backup winchesters. And I have to take ownership of folders ... . . . So at the same time I just see only one winchester. How can take the ownership of folders to XP and Win7 together? Thx, L.Molnar

Worked like a charm! Whew! Thanks! I'm glad it was so easy and everything is right in my world!

Hi, I still have a problem with this. When I installed Windows 7, I selected a 2nd drive (D) for a clean install. My original XP OS was installed on the main hd (C). I enter dual boot into Win 7, try to access Documents on the C drive. It prompted me to take ownership in order to access files there. I assigned ownership to my new Win 7 account ID. I logged back into XP which is more familiar. At login, my XPprofile receives a pop up system message "user environment detail - incorrect." something about the profile cannot be loaded and i have been set to default When I'm logged in, all the shortcuts and files on my desktop cannot be accessed. Pictures come up as invalid image. Music files do not play. Programs in Start menu do not expand. Many system configuration settings cannot be applied. I first tried going back to Win 7 and changing ownership back but it doesn't see my XP account ID. I went back to XP in safe mode as Administrator and gave myself all permissions, deleted the S-1-etc. account permissions, and took ownership of the whole C drive as Administrators. I then took ownership of Documents and Settings folder for my account ID. Logging back into XP, I no longer see the pop up, however, all shortcuts and document files still cannot be accessed. Is this because Win 7 security/ownership settings are conflicting with those for XP? I formatted the D drive to wipe out Win 7 but it didn't help. After running checkdisk, Win7 cannot boot... What ownership does the C drive have by default? What ownership should my documents and settings folder have? If I need to reinstall XP, how do I save all my data on the same HD? Can i resize my current XP partition, move everything over to another partition, reinstall XP elsewhere, delete the first partition, resize the partition back to the full C HD. I understand I need to reinstall all programs etc. Will that work? My other idea was to use the transfer wizard for XP to Vista upgrade which said it can copy programs too. Then upgrade from Vista to Win 7. Install XP on the 2nd drive. Thanks for any suggestions or feedback.