First there was cacls.exe, then xcacls.exe, then the dreaded and poorly-documented subinacl.exe. Each of these tools can be used in some fashion to view or modify access control lists (ACLs) i.e. permissions on files/folders on an NTFS volume. What you may not be aware of however is that Microsoft has released an updated version of xcacls that is actually a script instead of an executable. You can obtain xcacls.vbs from the Microsoft Download Center at http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/7/8/f786aaf3-a37b-45ab-b0a2-8c8c18bbf483/XCacls_Installer.exe and you can read about it further in KB 825751 which is found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/825751.

Mitch Tulloch was lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is THE book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. For more information see www.mtit.com.