[RESOLVED] question on taking ownership of files in xp

i use windows xp 64 edition professional.
i recently installed without backing up certificates and now i have some media i can not access. it is listed as encrypted although i didn't purposefully create it that way in the first place. Well i am logged in as administrator and i have tried to add a user to take ownership of the file but it tells me to choose from the certificates of all available users to assign to the file. The problem is the listbox is empty. I don't know how to create a certificate so it can let me add it. anyone help please. Approximately 8-10 rating points for a correct answer.

If you are logged in as the administrator, then you (should) have access to the file(s). Copy the files to a separate directory, delete the old one and do what you want with the files.
NTFS permission security should be what you are looking for.

If the files were encrypted under a different install of windows, I don't think you will have access to them.

i don't automatically have access to the files. there's a certificate list of users able to open the file and the admin of the last install was listed there but nothing else was. i have the option to add users to view it but when i click the button to do so the listbox is blank.

Since the data was encrypted and you didn't retain the certificate to decrypt the data, I am afraid you have no way way of accessing the data.

hmm well i was afraid of that. i was not sure that you could lose access though because supposedly an admin can view any file even if it is encrypted. the problem is that for some reason files i edited with a program i made in visual studio 8 were encrypted even though before i edited them they weren't. i was unaware of this until i reinstalled my OS (recommended by computer shop because i upgraded motherboards)

if windows was reinstalled you'll get usernames like "S1841696-5899-454925" in the security dialog meaning no user on the computer can access it. I think this is the User ID for current owner.

All you have to do is go to advanced> go to owner tab>then:
select your username from the listbox and check the check box for replace owner for subcontainers and objects, then OK.

you should then be able to access the folder. I have never had any problems with certificates what are they for.

When you encrypt a folder/file, it uses a certificate to encrypt the data. That certificate contains a long hex number that it uses to encrypt the data. Without this certificate, there is no way to decrypt the data. When you just change NTFS permissions, you can easily still find other ways to get to the data because the data remains physically unchanged. However, when you encrypt the data, the physical data is changed and it is impossible(unless you are the government) to get the data back to how it was before it was encrypted.

i am beginning to see that. I am not sure if that is the whole issue here though because it won't even let me copy the file to another location. I have assigned full permissions to every user and it still did not help.

Is the file/folder name displayed in green?

yes and it won't let me unencrypt it.

This may work but I'm not sure. Give it a shot:

Go to LOCAL SECURITY POLICY (control panel > admin tools)
Select PUBLIC KEY POLICIES on left side
On the right side it should list the people with certificates for the pc
On an empty area on right side, right click and select ADD DATA RECOVERY AGENT
Add your account to it
You should be able to access your files (if not, try restarting just for giggles)

The reason I'm not sure if it will work is that you say you reinstalled your OS. By doing so, you created a new SSID for the OS and adding yourself to the list of people able to view the encrypted files will not work because it has a different certificate based on the original SSID.

well, it's too late now. I finally gave up and just deleted the encrypted files. It wasn't anything crucial anyway. I added myself to the list but it did not help. I wasn't allowed to even open the file. So the situation no longer exists. I am marking the thread as resolved. Ratings for all who tried to help.