The module's own tests ran on Windows Server 2019, 2022, and 2025 and on
Windows 11 in the operating-system matrix. Two tests failed on every
domain-joined machine and passed on the development host:
- Get-NTFSInheritance -SecurityDescriptor reported AuditInheritanceEnabled
as $false for an item without audit entries, where -Path reported $true.
On these computers Windows reports the SACL as protected from
inheritance when it reads all sections together, and as not protected
when it reads the SACL alone. The descriptor now takes the audit section
from a separate read, like it already did for the access section. Write()
stores the sections that were read, so a descriptor with the wrong flag
would also have written the SACL back as protected.
- Get-NTFSEffectiveAccess -ServerName '' wrote an "Access is denied"
error on computers where Windows takes an empty name for this computer.
An empty name no longer asks the remote interface of the authorization
manager; the cmdlet warns and returns the result of this computer, like
for any name that can't be reached.
The existing tests that found them stay as the regression guards: they were
red on three virtual machines (Windows Server 2022 and 2025, Windows 11)
and are green after the change. Three tests are new: the audit state of a
file and a folder without audit entries, and of a file and a folder with
disabled audit inheritance, by path and by descriptor.
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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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Exercise all 13 scopes using named scopes and explicit Windows flags,
through disk paths and in-memory descriptors, for access and audit
entries. Verify removal keeps another account, and check actual
inheritance through children and grandchildren, including OneLevel.
Cover keep/remove switches and successful PassThru for both files and
folders, including Set-NTFSInheritance enabling protection states.
Controlled mutations lose OneLevel and keep folders protected: 12 tests
fail as expected. Restored implementations pass the 170-test focused
suite in all four configurations where privileges permit. No cmdlet
contract changes.
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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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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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Enable-NTFSAuditInheritance, Disable-NTFSAuditInheritance, and
Set-NTFSInheritance -AuditInheritanceEnabled failed with "(5) Access is
denied" for a file or folder without a SACL, also elevated with the
Security privilege. The cmdlets read only the audit section and changed
the flag that disables or enables audit inheritance. AlphaFS writes that
flag only together with a SACL, so it wrote no section at all, which
Windows denies; the retry as owner repeated the same write. An empty SACL
is now added first, but only to a descriptor that was read with its SACL.
The elevated CI runs of #100 to #106 showed this through the test of an
omitted -AccessInheritanceEnabled. From #104 on, the test that keeps the
inherited entries of a security descriptor failed as well: elevated,
Get-NTFSSecurityDescriptor reads the SACL, and Windows then returns a DACL
that isn't in the auto-inherit format, such as that of a file in the temp
folder of the user, without its inherited flags. The test now reads the
access section only and checks that the descriptor has inherited entries.
Tests: five cases for items without audit entries, red with "Access is
denied" before the fix; the test that keeps the explicit audit entries now
checks the errors and the inheritance state of both calls; a test checks
that a descriptor read without its audit entries gets no SACL, which would
replace the audit entries of the item when it is written.
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Mark the Set-NTFSInheritance change as breaking and warn that scripts that
used it to drop the inherited access entries now leave broader access in
place. Report any failure to create the hash algorithm as
HashAlgorithmNotAvailable, assert that error ID, check that the
MACTripleDES warning appears once, and guard the descriptor test.
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-AccessInheritanceEnabled $false now copies the inherited access entries
into the DACL, and -AuditInheritanceEnabled $true keeps the explicit audit
entries, as Disable-NTFSAccessInheritance and Enable-NTFSAuditInheritance
do without their switches (Decision 13).
BREAKING CHANGE: to remove the entries, use
Disable-NTFSAccessInheritance -RemoveInheritedAccessRules or
Enable-NTFSAuditInheritance -RemoveExplicitAuditRules.
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Disable-NTFSAuditInheritance -RemoveInheritedAccessRules is now
-RemoveInheritedAuditRules, and Enable-NTFSAuditInheritance
-RemoveExplicitAccessRules is now -RemoveExplicitAuditRules. The old names
remain aliases, so existing scripts keep working.
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The cmdlets that take ownership of an item to repeat a denied operation
left the account that ran them as the owner when the second attempt failed
as well. BaseCmdlet.InvokeAsOwner now restores the previous owner on every
exit path and reports a failed restore as RestoreOwnerError.
Add-NTFSAccess, Add-NTFSAudit, Remove-NTFSAccess, and Remove-NTFSAudit
wrote the unchanged entries of an item with -PassThru after a failed
change; they now continue with the next path.
The inheritance tests assert the error identity and cover a missing path
on every runner.
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Defect 20 (#74). Enable-NTFSAccessInheritance,
Disable-NTFSAccessInheritance, Enable-NTFSAuditInheritance,
Disable-NTFSAuditInheritance, and Set-NTFSInheritance wrote the
-PassThru object in a finally block. After a failed change, such as an
audit change without the Security privilege, they returned the unchanged
state, which made the inheritance look disabled; when the item could not
be read at all, reading the state in the finally block threw and stopped
the command. The object is now written only after a successful change.
Tests/Inheritance.Tests.ps1: 5 tests. The audit tests need the missing
privilege and skip in CI; the read-deny tests skip where the Backup
privilege may bypass the deny entry (CI).
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Defect 8. For a security descriptor that was read without its SACL (no
Security privilege), Get-NTFSInheritance -SecurityDescriptor reported
AuditInheritanceEnabled as $true, because the protection flag of a
section that was never read is not set. It now reports $null, like the
Path parameter set, using the sections that FileSystemSecurity2 records
since defect 4.
Set-NTFSInheritance -SecurityDescriptor reads the same state, so it no
longer skips a requested audit change on such a descriptor as "equal".
Tests/Inheritance.Tests.ps1: 2 tests.
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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 1. Set-NTFSInheritance compared the current state with an unset
Nullable<bool> and then read its value, so omitting
-AccessInheritanceEnabled always failed with "Nullable object must have a
value", and omitting -AuditInheritanceEnabled failed wherever the audit
section is readable. In the SecurityDescriptor set the error was
terminating.
An omitted parameter now leaves its section unchanged. The item, retry,
and security descriptor paths share one implementation instead of three
copies.
Tests/Inheritance.Tests.ps1 (new): 4 tests; the audit case needs the
Security privilege and runs in CI.
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Raimund Andree