Set-NTFSOwner doesn't work correctly with service account

Question

I have Powershell script that creates home directory:

New-Item -Path \\fileserver\homedir$\acn -ItemType Directory -Force -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null  

When I test this with my own account that is Domain Admin, everything works fine.
But when I try to use service account to do the same, it behaves differently. I have added service account as Domain Admin (at least for the first test round).

First difference (please verify):
With my account the owner becomes acn.
With service account the owner becomes the service account.

Then next command is:

Set-NTFSOwner -Path $HomeDir -Account 'Administrators' | Out-File "test.log"  

With my account owner changes as the admin group in the file server, just as it should.
With service account, nothing happens. Service account has full control access to this home directory and to the \fileserver\homedir$ directory.

Background info:

• My own Powershell Module directory is empty
• Powershell version:
  Major Minor Build Revision

---

4 0 30319 42000

• Import-modules

  Import-Module activedirectory -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null  
  Import-Module ntfssecurity -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null  
  

Answer 1

I am running Powershell version 5.1.19041.1 on Windows 10 2004. There is no Set-NTFSOwner command. After some research I did find a 3rd party NTFSSecurity module here.

https://ntfssecurity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Cmdlets/Set-NTFSOwner/

Is that module that you are using? If so, you should contact the author for support.

Is there some special requirement that you need to set the file owner? Why don't you just grant access to the user?

icacls.exe $HomeDir /grant "$($user):(OI)(CI)(F)" | Out-File "test.log" 

If you just need to set the owner to the Administrators group, you can use:

takeown.exe /a $HomeDir  | Out-File "test.log"

Answer 2

When (or if) that Set-NTFSOwner fails you'll miss the error in the file "test.log" because the error is sent on stream #2 (the Error stream). You might try something like this to see if there's an exception (maybe a non-terminating one) being thrown:

Try{  
    Set-NTFSOwner -Path $HomeDir -Account 'Administrators' -ErrorAction STOP  
}  
Catch{  
    $_ | Out-File "test.log"  
}  

. . . or redirect the stream to the "Success stream" by using "2>>&1 'test.log' instead of using "| Out-File 'test.log'.

about_redirection

Answer 3

Hi,

As it's a third party module you could contact the author. I find the NTFSSecurity project in Github
https://github.com/raandree/NTFSSecurity/issues

Best Regards,
Ian