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Q163911: Cacls.exe May Not Redirect Output to a File

Article: Q163911
Product(s): Microsoft Windows NT
Version(s): 4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbnetwork
Last Modified: 25-FEB-2002

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 
- Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

When you use the Windows NT Cacls.exe command to redirect access control list
information to a file instead of the screen, you may get unexpected results
depending on the version of Cacls.exe that you are using.

MORE INFORMATION
================

Cacls.exe is a command-line utility that ships with all versions of Windows NT.
It can display, replace, or edit, existing Access Control Lists (ACL) for files
and directories on an NTFS volume. Cacls.exe is useful for resource
administration and can also be helpful for troubleshooting issues related to
permissions.

You can use Cacls.exe with the /t and /c switches to display ACL information.

For example, if you have a directory called c:\temp and you wanted to display the
ACL for this directory, subdirectories, and its files, you could issue these
commands:

  cacls c:\temp /t /c

  cacls c:\temp /t /c |more

You can also output the result to a text file with this command:

  cacls c:\temp /t /c > <filename.txt>

The expected behavior is that the information would be written to a file rather
than to the screen. However, under Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 2, the file is
created, but contains only blank lines. Redirecting using the pipe (|) symbol
opens Notepad with the appropriate filename, but again the file itself is
empty.


RESOLUTION
==========

To resolve this problem, use the original version of Cacls.exe from Windows NT
4.0.

STATUS
======

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0 Service
Pack 2.

Additional query words: text file

======================================================================
Keywords          : kbnetwork 
Technology        : kbWinNTsearch kbWinNTWsearch kbWinNTW400 kbWinNTW400search kbWinNT400search kbWinNTSsearch kbWinNTS400search kbWinNTS400
Version           : :4.0
Issue type        : kbbug

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