Windows question: Owner vs Author

[dr wogz]

I feel a bit of a debate here:

What is the difference between 'Owner' and 'Author' on windows files?

We use PTC Creo, a CAD program in our department. We can see who last modified a file by turning on the 'owner' in file explorer.

But, according to our IT dept., this is not right. The owner is the one who "owns" the file, and the 'owner' shouldn't change when the file is updated..

Yet we see it change everytime a CAD file is updated..

SO, I guess I'm confused..

 

[CalebJ]

Isn't Owner an attribute generated within the Windows file system security structure, and Author an attribute stored by the program modifying the file? My understanding is that Owner would be a user account recognized by the O/S, where Author would be a string that could be any descriptive name as generated by the software in question.

 

[heada]

Owner conveys special rights and is an NTFS attribute. Author is a property of a document. They are not the same. The owner (NTFS filesystem attribute) doesn't change with writes *unless* you enter the advanced security feature and change the owner. To see the owner of a file/folder, right click -> properties -> security tab -> advanced. In the image below, you'll see that I am the owner of the file. This is the true owner as it is set by the filesystem, not the CAD application or document revision system.



edit: It is possible for the CAD software to actually change the owner of a file/folder on write but it'd have to be written specifically to do that which is VERY rare and you'd get a security warning each time you tried to write and if your IT department has things set up correctly, you may not be able to take ownership of files from someone else. You 100% would not be able to give the ownership away from yourself nor assign ownership to a 3rd account.

 

[dr wogz]

Uhm, OK.. I just did a test with a co worker.. I started the file, he revised them, I then revised them after him.. In all cases [Word docx included], the 'owner' changed.

see attached, and the files were 'Test-1.prt (Creo CAD file) and test-1.docx. author remains me.. (And now a few of you know my last name)

(He happens to be working from home, so that is why I assume his name changed to S-1-5-21.... working remote thru a Citrix portal)


I'm not professing to know anything about this, but that we use the tag "owner" to see who last changed / revised (screwed up!) a CAD file.. Seems to work with M$ files too. (PTC Creo is an unfriendly CAD program, based in 1990's UNIX, and has a really weird way of working..)

I was trying to figure out why a particular CAD file that changed on Friday, has an 'owner' that hasn't been with us in over 5 years.. that his 'user name' seems to be connected to some file / config / setting / etc..

 

[heada]

Confirm that what you're seeing in the basic Windows Explorer window matches the true info by looking at the advanced security info. If it does, then the app really is changing the owner on write which is a huge no-no in modern security practices. If this is on a NAS location and they have snapshots enabled, you may be able to look at the full revision history of a file if you right click and select "restore previous versions" Be careful of actually restoring any file/folder vs just looking at the write history.

The S-x-x-... is the SID. It is the non-human readable identifier. Basically, you can't translate the SID into a known user/group so it displays the SID since the SID is how it really stores that kind of info. They could be using a local account vs an AD account or in a different domain without a trust, etc.

 

[dr wogz]

Aaron, they change with each save.. Went thru the advanced security you pointed out. Looks like Creo changes it each save.. the rest of what you wrote is all Greek to me..

not surprised.. Creo is stuck in the 80's....

 

[heada]

In your screenshots, I see the T drive mapping is to a remote server (\\data2_srv\) If that remote location is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) and it has snapshots enabled, then you may be able to see all versions of that file within the snapshot history. For the file in question, right click it and select "Restore Previous Versions" That should (hopefully) list all versions of that file that could be restored from snapshots. It might show when it was last written to and you could try to restore the previous version to a different location to see who the owner is/was.

Ideally you would be working in some kind of modern CMS (content management system) that did check-in/check-out, versioning, approval work-flows, etc.) and all these kinds of problems would go away.

(Me: working remotely moving 700TB of legal data between NAS locations)