I got annoyed with the F1 key bringing up Windows help all the time because I think it's pretty useless. So the solution is to rename the "HelpPane.exe" file in the "C:\Windows" directory to something else so that pressing F1 never does anything anymore. However, I would like to automate this with a script.
Using PowerShell, I can try the following script:
Rename-Item -Force -Path "C:\Windows\HelpPane.exe" -NewName "C:\Windows\HelpPane1.exe"
However, whenever I run the script, whether as administrator or not, I receive the following error:
This is because Windows has some security permission on the file. I know that I can remove them manually by messing around in Properties/Security/Advanced, but I need an automated way to do this within the PowerShell script itself; I don't want to do this manually every time. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to manage these types of advanced permission from directly within PowerShell.
What do I need to add to my PowerShell script to make sure that the file gets renamed successfully? Thanks.
For reference, I'm running Windows 10 Enterprise 1607 build 14393.
Best Answer
You need to add an access control entry that grants you sufficient control, but to do that you first need to be the owner of the file. Administrators can make themselves the owner of any file, but the process doing the adjustment must have the
SeTakeOwnershipPrivilege
privilege enabled. Enabling that requires fiddling with unmanaged code, which Lee Holmes has done for us. I've reformatted and slightly tweaked his script, which you will need to save to a file (e.g.privs.ps1
):If you haven't already, you'll need to follow the instructions in the Enabling Scripts section of the PowerShell tag wiki. Then we can put everything together:
That adjusts the ACL, giving you permission to rename the file: