On a computer in a domain, Get-NTFSEffectiveAccess wrote "Access is denied"
and no result for every user who wasn't an administrator of the computer,
also for the default -ServerName localhost and for every other name of this
computer. The remote interface of the authorization manager of a computer
answers only its administrators and the members of Access Control Assistance
Operators, and a computer in a domain offers that interface to every caller.
On a computer outside a domain the interface is not reachable, so the cmdlet
already used the local authorization manager there, which is why the tests
passed on the development host and on the CI runners.
For a name of this computer, the cmdlet now uses the local authorization
manager when the remote one refuses the user. That manager is the one the name
asks for, and it answered correctly in every probe on Windows Server 2019,
2022, and 2025 and on Windows 11: for a standard domain user, a local standard
user, and an administrator with a filtered token, for the user's own account,
Everyone, the Administrator of the computer, and the Administrator and Domain
Users of the domain. For the name of another computer, the denial stays an
error, as the cmdlet page and the live test of the delegated account describe.
Twenty tests of the suite failed in the basic-user mode on every domain-joined
machine of the operating-system matrix, with the published 5.0.0-rc7 code and
with the code before this change, and pass with it (Windows Server 2019: basic
user 782 and 780 passed, 0 failed, in Windows PowerShell and PowerShell 7). A
new live test runs the case as the administrator of the file server, who isn't
an administrator of the client.
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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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A throw in a later command, or an error with -ErrorAction Stop, reaches a cmdlet through its Write call as an ordinary exception. The catch for the failures of an item reported it as the error of that item and went on, so that Remove-Item2 -PassThru removed the next item after a throw, and the caller never saw the exception. The earlier check found only the end of the pipeline and a break or continue. BaseCmdlet now notes the exception that its WriteObject, WriteVerbose, and WriteDebug raised, and every catch that can enclose a write passes it on; Get-DiskSpace writes outside its try. Set-NTFSSecurityDescriptor and Get-FileHash2 also caught it at a verbose message.
Get-ChildItem2 -Filter *.* returns every item, as Get-ChildItem does. The cmdlet compared each name with the pattern again and dropped the items without a dot, most folders among them; the dot stays an ordinary character in other patterns.
The failed lookup of InheritedFrom frees its native buffer. The help paragraph of -Filter has no pair of asterisks, which platyPS turns into emphasis, and the page has an example for *.*.
Review of the independent pass: the restored-owner test asserts that a plain write is denied, the drive-mapping helper has guard tests and takes letters that the no-volume tests do not, and the pipeline tests cover a throw, an error with -ErrorAction Stop, and the verbose and debug streams for every cmdlet that can reach the code.
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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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Where a computer doesn't offer the remote interface of the authorization
manager, the cmdlet calculates the result with the local one and warns
that the result might be inaccurate. Only localhost in lowercase counted
as this computer, so the cmdlet warned that the computer couldn't be
reached for ., LOCALHOST, or the computer name, although the local result
is the result of that computer. A name of this computer is now localhost
in any case, ., the NetBIOS name, the DNS host name, or the fully
qualified domain name.
From the security-reviewer pass over be04cb7..4ee01e5 (Nit 7),
reproduced in Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7 on a workstation
without the remote interface.
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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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Get-NTFSEffectiveAccess -ServerName with a computer that can't be
resolved or reached returned no access, while it warned that it had
calculated the result on this computer. In that case,
AuthzInitializeRemoteResourceManager fails with RPC_S_SERVER_UNAVAILABLE
(1722); the code fell back to the local authorization manager only for
EPT_S_NOT_REGISTERED (1753), and GetEffectiveAccess swallowed the
exception. It now falls back for 1722 as well, as the cmdlet page
describes. The live tests in a lab found it; the new test in
Access.Tests.ps1 reproduces it on any computer.
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Raimund Andree
Raimund Andée