Tim Van Wassenhove

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Remove all access rules from a directory

Posted by timvw on September 22, 2011 Leave a comment (3) Go to comments

A while ago i needed to write some code that removes all (existing/inherited) access rules from a given directory. It was pretty frustrating to notice that all my attempts seemed to fail (RemoveAccessRule, PurgeAccessRule, …)

Finally i found that SetAccessRuleProtection was the method that i needed to invoke.

const string Folder = @"c:\temp\secured";
var directory = new DirectoryInfo(Folder);
var directorySecurity = directory.GetAccessControl();
directorySecurity.SetAccessRuleProtection(true,false);
directory.SetAccessControl(directorySecurity);

Image of the security properties tab in windows

There you go

UncategorizedC, security

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1. Raj March 27, 2012 at 20:09

   I tried the RemoveAccessRule & frustated.. Finally, I tried this & worked! Great peace of work! Thanks man!

   -Raj
2. MrCube June 29, 2012 at 15:12

   You made my day! I got very frustrated removing each single rule and didn’t manage to remove all at once.
   Great!
3. Nahuel November 20, 2012 at 12:12

   I know I’m late to the party, but after almost 3 hours of failed attempts, I found this and it worked like a charm.

   Thank you very much, you saves my sprint task!