I win

[Ice Czar]

so, yesterday while securing my workstation to venture out onto the big bad interweb for the very first time, I ran into a persisent and bothersome issue, I couldnt install .msi packages

I tried everything
upgrading to Windows Installer 2
MSI fix utilities
running the installers within the directory

then I discovered something strange I go to WINNT\Installer and I don't have access,
WTF?

well long story short when I was tightening NTFS permissions removing the Everyone Group for the drive and replacing it with Authenticated Users I failed to grant full control rights and locked my happy ass out

so I go to take ownership, that works just dandy and I grant myself full rights, back to WINNT\Installer and I still dont have access
WTF?

OK you want to play hardball do you? try this bitch! drop to a commandline, call up cacls,
CACLS C:\WINNT\Installer /G Administrator:F

access denied!
WTF!!!!!!

@#@@!@##$#@#$#

so, I go off for a looksee about the net and find
SuperCACLS (a demo of a program you cant buy) you get if I recall just 5 tries

has a takeown tool, cant recall exactly the commandline syntax but damn it opened it up like a can of sardines

I win

 

[GeForceX]

Congrats. I still believe you are too kind. I mean, giving away that kind of information.

-J.

 

[Ice Czar]

well after the better part of a day trying to fix something I borked in a few seconds
I thought relating the story might have some merit

alot of the most useful tales come from someone being a total idiot
and Im widely known for the odd lapse into stupidity

the moral of this story is don't rush through NTFS permissions
and when you can't do it one way look for alternative solutions
I gather SuperCACLS is a widely regarded "powertool" among the less principled
Im not sure why I was unable to take ownership of that folder even though I reclaimed every other folder
and worse I have no clue why CALCS wouldnt let me back in
but Im certainly glad I finally solved it, I had forgot to install some 3 key aps
(Nero, Openoffice & Java)

the worse part of it was eliminating all the layers of security I had already put in place as the possible culprit,
I spent an inordinate amount of time just finding out it was a permissions issue to begin with.

Id also mention that cleaning up SuperCALCS takes some extra effort,
note down the cautions in the demo for uninstalling,
for instance you need to remove it from the environmental variables as it injects into PATH