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Windows XP and DOS - Display Directory and File Owners

SUMMARY: If you share your Windows XP machine with others, this parameter lets you display directory and file ownership at the DOS prompt or in a batch file.

If you administer a Windows XP machine containing multiple user accounts, it may prove beneficial to view who owns a particular file or directory. This can help prevent accidentally moving or deleting a file used by someone else, or this feature can help monitor unwanted activity.

dir /q

If you just want to find files owned by the Administrator account, for example, use the following piped command:

dir /q | find "Administrator"

To view all files owned by Administrator in the current directory and all subdirectories, pipe the command with findstr as follows:

dir /q /s | findstr "Administrator Directory"

This will display each directory name followed by all files (if any) owned by the Administrator account.