Take ownership of a registry key

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

To take ownership of a registry key

  1. Open Registry Editor.

  2. Click the key you want to take ownership of.

  3. On the Edit menu, click Permissions.

  4. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.

  5. Under Change owner to, click the new owner, and then click OK.

Caution

  • Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on your computer.

Notes

  • To open Registry Editor, click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

  • You must have appropriate permissions to make changes to a registry key. To maintain security when making changes to a registry key for which you need administrative credentials, log in as a member of the Users group and run Regedit as an administrator by right-clicking the Regedit icon, clicking Run as, and clicking an account in the local Administrators group. The Regedit icon does not appear by default from the Start menu. To access the icon, open the Windows or WINNT folder on your computer.

  • You can take ownership of a registry key if you are logged on as an administrator or if you have been specifically assigned the permission to take ownership of the registry key by the current owner.

Information about functional differences

  • Your server might function differently based on the version and edition of the operating system that is installed, your account permissions, and your menu settings. For more information, see Viewing Help on the Web.

See Also

Concepts

Assign permissions to a registry key
Audit activity on a registry key