Eminent hard drive failure has require a re-install of Windows 7 Professional. With this, a new massive headache. The previous user is no more, and I've just been introduced to the wonderfully colorful world of ownership. So, as far as I can gather, the previous user is dead, and now every file he/she has ever made (he), requires I use administrator rights on every SINGLE FILE to agree that I want to do what ever it is that I want to do to the hardware and software I purchased. HOW DO I TURN OF THIS SECURITY JUNK!? There is only one user (minus the hidden administrator and guest account). I tried bulk, changing the ownership of every file on the removable drive to "everyone", "An error occurred while applying security information to: XXX Access is denied." Repeat 100+ times for all folders in the root of the drive. Well isn't that some fancy words. I've tried running as the administrator (unhidding the account). No good, turns out "god" mode is useless in this frustrating game. Best I can tell, installing ubuntu seems like the only solution? The problem is, I'm the lead graphics engineer for the company, if I install ubuntu, then I'd have to change our graphics API to OpenGL, is this the way to go?

You can use use Takeown.exe and Icacls.exe to take ownership and modify access control lists to multiple files. See http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7security/thread/0dc694f3-4038-493b-b1c8-d46269e1f408 for further information. Hope this helps.

Ubuntu uses the same security model, so you'll have the exact same issue. If this was helpful, please vote by clicking the green triangle. If it solves the issue, click Propose as Answer. Thanks!