Generally speaking, a user needs to take ownership of a file in Windows operating system before renaming, editing and deleting protected operating system files.
Unfortunately, like its predecessors, Windows 10 also doesn’t offer an easy way to take ownership of files. While it’s possible to take ownership of files from GUI and Command Prompt, the procedure is not straight-forward.
If you often need to take ownership of files to edit, modify or delete files, adding Take ownership option to the file right-click menu or file context menu is a good idea. By adding Take ownership option to the right-click menu, you can take ownership of files in a few seconds.
In order to add Take ownership option to the right-click menu in Windows 10, you need to make a couple of changes to Windows Registry. Since not all users are comfortable with manually editing the Registry, we are providing a ready-to-use Registry file which you can merge to easily make necessary changes to Windows Registry and add Take ownership option to the file context menu of Windows 10.
Add Take ownership to file/folder context menu in Windows 10
Follow the given below directions to add Take ownership option to the file context menu in Windows 10.
Step 1: Click here to download Take Ownership.zip file. Extract the downloaded zip file to get Install Take Ownership.reg and Uninstall Take Ownership.reg files.
Step 2: Right-click on Install Take Ownership.reg file and then click Merge option.
Step 3: Click the Run button if you see the following file security warning.
Step 4: Next, you will get the User Account Control prompt where you need to click Yes button to continue.
Step 5: When you see the Registry Editor dialog, click Yes button to add the information to Registry.
Step 6: Finally, OK button.
Step 7: You should now see Take Ownership option when you right-click on a file or folder in Windows 10. If not, restart the Windows Explorer or restart your PC once. You should now see Take ownership option whenever you right-click on a file in Windows 10.
Remove Take ownership option from file context menu
To remove Take Ownership option from file/folder context menu, please merge the Uninstall Take Ownership.reg file included in Take Ownership.zip file that you downloaded in the first step of this guide.
Take ownership of a file/folder
To take ownership of a file, right-click on a file, click Take ownership option, and click Yes button when you see the UAC prompt.
TakeOwnershipEx is a free tool out there to quickly take ownership of files in Windows operating system.
Jack says
Mr. Van Praet above cant remove the file because he is not the admin acct. He is the USER acct. If you are an ADMIN you can delete the files in safe mode anyway. This take ownership command is mostly if you are the admin or if you run as admin and add the admin password in regular mode win10. This has lately become more of an issue with MKV or MP4 video files as you can’t delete them or rename them anymore in fast track releases as of 2/2019. As I am the admin and I own the admin acct I can delete or rename them in safe mode without the take ownership command. You can also do this with a Parted Magic CD as you have admin privledges. But still this is a handy tool as I no longer have to reboot in safe mode. Thanks for the reg files!!!!
Jeff says
I’m actually more comfortable editing my registry than merging a downloaded file. I’ll try to peek into the file to see what’s in it, but if it’s unreadable, where can I see the keys and values needed for this mod?
Bill says
This was too awesome! Worked great. Easy to do. I wish all the advice I found on the internet was as good as this! Thank you very much for taking the time to post this.
D. Walker says
I had uninstalled Bitdefender but all the files/folders etc. remained still showing in C:\programs even though the program had been fully uninstalled. I wasn’t able to delete them even using the “Takeownsership” option. I finally booted Windows 10 into “safe mode”. From there, I was able to easily delete all the files without any issues.
Klaas Van Praet … You might dive that a try.
Klaas Van Praet says
It works.. Except for on the file I want to delete.. Keeps telling me only the user has right.. The user being me. The user being the only account on this computer being used by only one person. This pisses me off to no end.
Alan Carlisle says
Excellent, this solves a lot of problems. Thank you very much