Win 7 - Access denied errors, even after setting ownership and admin rights.

A program I am trying to install needs access to the system32 folder and comcat.dll file, but I get an access denied error. When I initially installed Win 7 Pro 64bit, the first thing I did (before updates or any other installs) was give ownership at the root of C:\ to the administrators group (I made sure to check the option to apply the setting to subfolder and all files as well). I also made sure to give the administrators group full rights at the root level, making sure that it was applied to sub folders as well.

When the install failed due to access denied to the comcat.dll in the system32 folder, I set the permissions on that file, and on the system32 folder directly. Still, I get access denied error for this file.

I am at a loss here, all the permissions are set correctly, they look identical from the root of C:\ all the way down to the actual file. I tried installing the program as an administrator and as a user part of the administrators group. I also turned off the UAC completely, I also ran the .exe as an administrator and still I get access denied error.

One would think that since the admin group has ownership and full rights at the root level and even on the specific file, that I should have full access, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions, please?!

 

My Win 7 Ult C:\ is owned by TrustedInstaller. Seems changing the default ownership may not be a great idea. I would try changing the ownership back to TrustedInstaller and cascading that down if the name checks out when you try it.