What does “enable inheritance” do on windows 10

Question

What does “enable inheritance” do on windows 10

In: Technology

Answer 1

This has to do with permissions. In the Windows file structure files are contained within folders, which in turn can be contained within other folders forming a branching tree for a directory. The folder above a file is called its “parent”. Access to specific files or folders can be controlled per user.

This means someone might be given access to a folder but not to some files within that folder. What enabling inheritance does is allow files and folders to “inherit” the permissions of the parent container. So if you create a file within a folder someone has access to they will automatically be given access to the file, rather than needing to explicitly be allowed.