Add permission to all files but avoid inheritable permissions redundancy?

[Richard Thomas]

I want to add a permission to all files and folders on a drive. I know I
can add the permission to everything with a command like this:

cacls \ /t /e /c /g group:F

But this seems like overkill when for a lot of files and folders would
simply gain this from inheritable permissions. However, we do have quite
a few folders with inheritable permissions disabled so we do need to
account for these. Is there any way to say "Add this permission to all
folders and files except for those which would already have it otherwise"?

Rich

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Take a look at using xcacls.vbs instead which has a LOT more features. It
has an /I switch to deal with the way inheritable permissions are dealt with
and it says that by default it will not touch inheritable permissions. It
would be best to try out this powerful tool on a test computer first. ---
Steve

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=825751 --- xcacls.vbs

/I switch Inheritance flag. If omitted, the default is to not
touch
Inherited ACL's. Switch can be:
ENABLE - This will turn on the Inheritance flag if
it is not on already.
COPY - This will turn off the Inheritance flag
and
copy the Inherited ACL's
into Effective ACL's.
REMOVE - This will turn off the Inheritance flag
and
will not copy the Inherited
ACL's. This is the opposite of ENABLE.
If switch is not present, /I will be ignored and
Inherited ACL's will remain untouched.

 

[Roger Abell [MVP]]

No, at least not with any of the tools I am familiar.
Ideally you know where new inheritance points are set
(i.e. where inheritance is blocked). If so, you need only
add the new grant at those points (without the /t switch)