Add-NTFSAccess, Remove-NTFSAccess, and Add-NTFSAudit report an AddAceError or RemoveAceError for each item when .NET refuses an entry without rights, change nothing, and return nothing with -PassThru. Get-NTFSAccess returns the one entry that .NET reports for a NULL DACL without a source; the new helper Set-TestNullDacl writes it through SetNamedSecurityInfo inside the sandbox guard. Get-NTFSHardLink lists the names of a file whose read rights are denied, which is why its UnauthorizedAccessException handler has no trigger. The public Extensions.ForEach and GetParent helpers, which a static scan listed as unused although cmdlets call them, are tested directly.
All of these characterize behavior that was already correct, so none was red before; the mutations that prove their detection run against the frozen measurement commit.
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When Windows cannot name the folder of an inherited entry, such as for an item that was deleted after its descriptor was read or for a folder above it that the user cannot read, the module fills InheritedFrom with a fallback text. The callers removed the last character of every source, which belongs to the trailing backslash of a real folder, so the fallback read 'unknown paren'. The fallback also named an unknown parent for explicit entries, which have no source. Remove only a trailing backslash, and name an unknown parent for inherited entries only.
The regression tests fail without the fix in all four configurations for access entries and in both elevated configurations for audit entries. The cmdlet pages name the text, and the help file is generated again.
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Reproduce and fix public rule paths, simplified audit comparisons and ReadData conversion, and boxed privilege equality. Add behavior guards for descriptor inheritance, unresolved identities, audit capability and recursive denial. Freeze this source for Release matrix measurement; final gate evidence and independent review follow.
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Without the Security privilege, Get-NTFSOrphanedAudit read the item
without its SACL and returned nothing, which looked like an item without
orphaned entries, and it wrote a warning for an item that it couldn't
read. It now reads only the SACL, like Get-NTFSAudit, and writes a
ReadSecurityError with the category PermissionDenied or OpenError. The
error for a path that doesn't exist stays ReadError.
Decision 22, item 1: an assumption in autopilot, flagged for the
maintainer's review.
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Equals of FileSystemAccessRule2, FileSystemAuditRule2, and
FileSystemSecurity2 cast its argument to the .NET type, which throws for
the wrapper types themselves: -eq and -contains, and in PowerShell 7 also
Select-Object -Unique and Compare-Object, stopped with an
InvalidCastException. GetHashCode of FileSystemSecurity2 read a field
that is never set and threw a NullReferenceException. Two objects are now
equal when they hold the same entry or descriptor, like the .NET types.
InheritedFrom: Win32.GetInheritedFrom returned the sources of the SACL
whenever the descriptor had one, also for the access entries, and the
callers gave the filtered entries of -ExcludeExplicit the sources of the
first entries of the ACL. Get-NTFSAccess -SecurityDescriptor stopped with
an ArgumentOutOfRangeException for a descriptor with audit entries, as
Get-NTFSSecurityDescriptor reads them in an elevated session. The method
now takes the ACL of the entries, and the callers map the sources before
they filter.
The coverage report of rc6 pointed at both; each test fails without its
fix.
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- Remove-NTFSAccess and Remove-NTFSAudit with -RemoveSpecific are tested
also with -Path, not only with -SecurityDescriptor.
- Copy-Item2 and Move-Item2 name the destination of a folder in their
verbose message, not only of a file.
- The Enable-Privileges count compares with the privileges of the token,
so that it passes as a basic user, whose token holds one; the tests of
-PassThru restore the privilege states that they found.
- The type name comparison of Get-FileHash2 is exact, the inherited-entry
counts must be greater than zero, and the braces test (#3) checks the
verbose message that raised the FormatException.
- Remove-TestSandbox removes paths longer than 260 characters in Windows
PowerShell, through the \\?\ prefix and rd, so the long-path test of
Test-Path2 no longer cleans up itself; after a failed setup, it returns
instead of stopping AfterAll with a binding error.
Not reachable by a test: a second path whose SACL read fails while the
Security privilege is enabled; a declined -Confirm takes the code path of
-WhatIf. The tests that need a session without privileges get the CI run
as a basic user.
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Add tests from the contract of its cmdlet page: the security descriptor
parameter set, an inherited entry with and without -ExcludeInherited, an
entry of an account that resolves, the verbose count, the error for a
missing path and for a descriptor without the audit entries, and the
result without the Security privilege, which the page describes as empty.
The setup of the entries moves into BeforeAll, so that the -Account test
no longer depends on the test before it (#110).
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- Read the root folder for a volume name such as \\?\Volume{GUID}\ too,
like for a drive letter, and accept only the letters A to Z as a drive
- Report a security descriptor without the audit entries without naming a
missing Security privilege as the cause, which may not be the reason
- Skip the audit tests that change a descriptor from
Get-NTFSSecurityDescriptor in a session without the Security privilege
- Assert the absence of the old hint in the Get-NTFSEffectiveAccess test
- Narrow the drive-root note of Get-NTFSAccess to the security cmdlets
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- #41: for the root of a drive, the cmdlets read and changed the security
descriptor of the drive, a device object. FileSystemSecurity2 now routes
drive roots through the path-based AlphaFS methods, which keep the
trailing backslash; the removal and inheritance helpers use it too.
- #109: Add-, Remove-, and Clear-NTFSAudit report a security descriptor
without the audit entries like Get-NTFSAudit, through one helper, and
Get-NTFSEffectiveAccess names the cause that Windows reported instead
of a missing Security privilege.
- #108: Copy-Item2 and Move-Item2 check the destination only for an
operation that runs; with -WhatIf, a verbose message names the conflict.
- #111: Disable-Privileges skips the privileges that the token doesn't
hold, the privilege messages are spelled right, and Get-FileHash2
declares the type name of its objects; 05-Releasing.md documents the
release metadata tests.
- rc3 review leftovers: Remove-NTFSAudit writes nothing for an item
without a SACL, the owner retry of Set-NTFSSecurityDescriptor restores
the previous owner in a finally block and keeps an owner that the
descriptor sets, and FileSystemSecurity2.Write with another item writes
only the sections that were read.
Each fix has a test that failed first, in Windows PowerShell 5.1 and
PowerShell 7; writing a drive root was checked once on a temporary VHD.
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The access and audit cmdlets wrote the owner of an item back with the
entries they changed. For a DACL without the auto-inherit flag, Windows
returns the owner and the group even when only the DACL is read, and the
cmdlets wrote every section that the descriptor held. Without the Restore
privilege, or on a file server that refuses the owner, the write failed
with error 1307 (#34).
- Add-NTFSAccess, Clear-NTFSAccess, Add-NTFSAudit, and Clear-NTFSAudit
read only the DACL or the SACL. FileSystemSecurity2.Write(),
Remove-NTFSAccess, and Remove-NTFSAudit write only the sections they
read, which also fixes the access inheritance cmdlets.
- Read together with the SACL, the inherited entries of such a DACL lose
their inherited flag when the parent folder has no SACL, and the
cmdlets stored them as explicit copies. Get-NTFSSecurityDescriptor now
reads the DACL in a separate call.
- Set-NTFSSecurityDescriptor writes only the sections that changed since
they were read; an unchanged descriptor writes nothing (maintainer
decision of 2026-10-06).
- Clear-NTFSAudit writes nothing for an item without a SACL, and reports
an error without the Security privilege (maintainer decision).
The regression tests failed before and pass after the fix in Windows
PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7, elevated and as a basic user.
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Defect 19, and the same gap in Remove-NTFSAudit. After the ReadFileError
for a path that doesn't exist, both cmdlets went on with a null item: the
removal failed with a NullReferenceException that they reported as a
second, misleading RemoveAceError, and with -PassThru the null item
stopped the command. Both now continue with the next path.
Tests: Access.Tests.ps1 and Audit.Tests.ps1, 2 tests each.
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Security review of this branch, Major findings:
- M4: Get-NTFSAudit took ownership of an item whose SACL it couldn't
read. Ownership grants no access to the SACL, so the retry always
failed, and it left the owner changed. The cmdlet now writes a
ReadSecurityError with the category PermissionDenied, as Get-NTFSOwner
does since defect 9; the page says so.
- M1: Remove-TestSandbox reset the ACLs recursively before it removed the
links. Measured: icacls /reset /T did not follow the junction (the
target's explicit entry stayed), but the links now go first anyway; a
folder that denies listing gets a reset without /T. New test: the ACL
of a junction target stays unchanged.
- m4: Assert-TestSandboxPath now rejects a path below a link, which can
point outside the sandbox (new test, failed before).
- M5: the Inherits column reads one ACL per displayed item; the
Get-ChildItem2 page names the cost and how to avoid it.
- M2: the comment of the CI-only Get-NTFSAudit repeat test states what it
guards; Access.Tests.ps1 guards the same loop fix without elevation.
- M3, the stale hash of Get-FileHash2, is fixed on ai/defects-c.
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Defect 17. Both cmdlets carried a removeSpecific field that no parameter
set, so they always took the rights away from matching entries; the
version history documents a -RemoveSpecific switch since 4.1. Both
cmdlets now have the switch, which removes only an entry that matches
exactly. The Security2 list overloads didn't pass the flag on, and the
audit item overload didn't support it; all overloads now do.
The applies-to field of both cmdlets is initialized; -AppliesTo is
mandatory in the Simple sets since defect 14, so it is always set when
used.
Tests: Access.Tests.ps1 3 tests, Audit.Tests.ps1 2 tests, on in-memory
security descriptors.
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Defect 16. Get-NTFSOrphanedAccess, Get-NTFSOrphanedAudit, and
Get-NTFSSimpleAccess inherit -Account and -SecurityDescriptor from
Get-NTFSAccess or Get-NTFSAudit but override ProcessRecord without them:
- All three now filter by -Account and process security descriptors
(Get-NTFSOrphanedAudit writes an error for one read without its SACL,
like Get-NTFSAudit).
- Get-NTFSOrphanedAudit wrote the entries of each item as one collection;
it now writes one object per entry.
- Get-NTFSOrphanedAccess kept the entries of the previous item and wrote
them in a finally block, like Get-NTFSAccess before; each item now
starts empty.
- SimpleFileSystemAccessRule had no view; it gets a table with Account,
Access Rights, and Type, grouped by folder, with the grouping control
that existed for it but was unused.
Tests: Access.Tests.ps1 6 tests; Audit.Tests.ps1 2 tests, CI-only because
they add audit entries.
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Defect 7. FileSystemAuditRule2.GetFileSystemAuditRules set the
InheritanceEnabled property of every audit entry from
AreAccessRulesProtected, the protection of the DACL. It now uses
AreAuditRulesProtected, so the property, and the "Inheritance enabled"
header of the audit view, describe the audit entries.
Tests/Audit.Tests.ps1: 1 test on an in-memory security descriptor whose
SACL is protected and whose DACL is not.
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Defect 6. With -PassThru, Add-NTFSAudit returned the access entries of a
security descriptor in its SecurityDescriptor sets, and Remove-NTFSAudit
returned the access entries of the item in its Path sets. Both now return
the audit entries, as in their other parameter sets.
Tests/Audit.Tests.ps1: 2 tests; the Remove-NTFSAudit test writes a SACL
and runs in CI.
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Defect 5 (#4). -Account and -AccessRights of Add-NTFSAudit were both
declared at position 2, so a positional call failed with "Cannot bind
positional parameters because no names were given". -AccessRights is now
at position 3 in all four parameter sets, like in Remove-NTFSAudit.
The page's parameter metadata says position 3 as well. platyPS takes the
position from Get-Help, that is from the shipped help file, so
Update-MarkdownHelp kept the old value; the page, the regenerated help
file, and the build now agree.
Tests/Audit.Tests.ps1: 5 tests (positions in each parameter set and a
positional call against an in-memory security descriptor).
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- New-TestSandboxItem creates a uniquely named file or folder in a sandbox
after the path guard, replacing per-file copies.
- Block-TestReadPermission denies OWNER RIGHTS the right to read the
security descriptor of a sandbox item, so that reading it fails without
elevation.
- Remove-TestSandbox no longer stops when icacls cannot reset such an
item: Windows PowerShell turned the icacls message on stderr into a
terminating error; the item is still deleted through its folder.
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Defect 4, both parts:
- Get-NTFSAudit kept the entries of the previous item and wrote them in a
finally block, so a path whose security descriptor failed to read
returned the previous item's entries again. Each item now starts empty,
and entries are written only after a successful read.
- Without the Security privilege, the cmdlet read the descriptor without
its SACL and returned nothing, like an item without audit entries. It
now reads the SACL alone, so a missing privilege is a ReadSecurityError
("A required privilege is not held by the client"). A descriptor from
Get-NTFSSecurityDescriptor that was read without the SACL gets the same
error; FileSystemSecurity2 now records which sections it read
(internal, visible to NTFSSecurity).
Tests/Audit.Tests.ps1 (new): 3 tests. The repeat test needs the Security
privilege to add an audit entry and runs in CI.
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Raimund Andree