Win 7/Vista: Access Denied - BEGONE! :D [Danger; read disclaimer]

[Avan]

DISCLAIMER!
The following tool is INSANELY POWERFUL. This 'hack' is meant only for use by computer-savvy people who know what they are doing and have reason to do it (almost always involving modding/programming/advanced-user-stuff/cake/stopping malware/etc). Most users DON'T need this ability; hence why MS locked it in vista/7 in the first place!

If you don't know what the folders 'Program Files/WINDOWS/SystemVolumeInformation/etc.' do/contain, you should stop reading this thread immediately, as using this tool is likely to allow you to cause irreparable damage to your computer's software.

With great power comes great responsibility. Don't play with files willy-nilly. Like System Volume Information; that folder is... critical. Don't delete it. Same goes for WINDOWS and ProgramFiles and UsersAndDocuments and all that other stuff...
With great power comes corruption. Don't use this on $Recycle; it will corrupt your recycle bin (your computer will be fine, but windows will purge everything in the recycle bin the next time you use it)!

Full explanation (original source, contains uninstall too)
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-take-ownership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/

NOTE: you must already have an administrator account on your computer to do this, so if you have a non-admin account/lack permission to modify registry keys, you're out of luck, because I don't feel at liberty to reveal how to bypass that.

HOW TO DO THIS:
1) download the following file.

http://www.avan.me/InstallTakeOwnership.reg

2) merge the file with your registry

3) right click any folder you want to take ownership of it... congrats! once command prompt closes, you will have COMPLETE and TOTAL ownership* of everything in it. Yes. You CAN delete your WINDOWS folder now. (That's a HORRIBLY STUPID idea though, so don't do it)

*NOTICE: the term ownership as used in this article DOES NOT refer to legal/financial/whatever possession of the files/folders. It refers to the status of having the ability to delete/move/copy/whatever a file/folder using the windows vista/7 operating system.

[Ziel]

I honestly think the only thing I would find that useful for would be deleting the OS from a drive that I'm not actually running off of, or easily moving/deleting "my documents/music/pictures, etc" folders. I'm not one to get too involved in messing with things that are important to my computer's functionality.  It is pretty cool, though.

[Avan]

Oh, I just remembered - backing stuff up/unbacking stuff up from 'protected' folders is also a good use of it.
...in fact the original reason why I searched it out... XD

Not that it doesn't have tons of other uses for me.

[Weisseman]

So it's basically a short cut to taking ownership. You can take ownership of any folder in Windows if you're on an admin account. Does take awhile though.

[Avan]

Nope; even on an admin (or the hidden super-admin) accounts, there are some folders you can't take full control of, such as program files or WINDOWS; trying to change the permission/ownership of those manually with properties -> securty->edit->fullcontrol->apply method doesn't work; you will get an access denied error.

[Weisseman]

Fair enough. I don't see many on these forums (if any) that will require it mind. I certainly can't think of any uses for this for myself.

Ziel: If your going to delete the OS you may as well format the drive. Most people will only ever want to keep their documents and they'll get move over to another drive usually.

[Avan]

...other than me?  (It's actually been incredibly useful for me)

[Weisseman]

Other than yourself yes x3

[Ziel]

Yeah, reformatting and stuff is more the way to go for that sort of thing. But I know a few people now who have had issues while/right after installing 7 on a drive they just formatted. It would just seem to be faster to be able to quickly delete the corrupted OS files and start installing again, rather than having to wait for another reformat before trying to install again.

Also, if you decide to switch drives you're running your OS off (perhaps you just got a new SSD to run it from), you could install on the new drive, boot from it, and then remove the OS files from the previous HDD, while still easily keeping all your documents and such.