What is CHOWN?

CHOWN : Assign a new owner to a file

In depth

A closer look at CHOWN

The CHOWN application was designed to be a small command line tool that demonstrates that it is possible to assign a new owner to a file, even if Microsoft asserts that this is impossible. Not the first implementation of such a program, but source is included, so you may understand how this works. To set a new owner of a file, only ordinary Win32 API calls are needed. All you have to do is: - enable the Backup, Restore and Take Ownership privileges (with AdjustTokenPrivileges()). These are usually granted to Administrators. I also enable the Bypass Traverse Checking privilege, but I have not yet fully investigated if this is really necessary.

Verdict

Should you download CHOWN?

CHOWN runs on Windows 10/11 and is available under the GNU Public License license — the installer is 34 KB. We’ve catalogued it under System.

Verified clean. Every CHOWN build on SoftLookup is scanned for viruses, spyware, adware, trojans and backdoors. We re-test on every update.

CHOWN specifications

Category: System
Publisher: Alexander Frink
Last updated: Apr 27, 2026
License: GNU Public License
Operating system: Windows 10/11
File size: 34 KB
Price: Free
Page views: 746

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What is CHOWN?

A closer look at CHOWN

Should you download CHOWN?

CHOWN specifications

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