ICACLS is another great command line tool but it can be a bit quirky, especially if you use the wrong character set.

My challenge was to copy the permissions from one folder to several other folders without using inheritance. I could have done this manually, but because I had to process hundreds of folders this would have taken several hours and I would have gotten a headache from clicking the same buttons over and over again.

So I decided to use ICACLS instead (this was on Windows Server 2008 R2).

Here is the Step-by-Step approach. NOTE: Make sure to use Unicode when you generate the ICACLS input file.

1. Manually set the permissions on your folder that will serve as a template for all other folders. Example: E:\shared\template
2. Run icacls with the /save option to save the permssions:
3. icacls E:\shared\template /save template.txt
4. now using Powershell get-childitem I retrieved the names of all of the folders that require the new permissions.
5. Get-childitem -Path <pathname>|select-object Name
6. I then copy the results of this command into a Text Editor. Example:
7. Get-childitem -Path E:\Targetfolders|select-object Name
   
   Folder 1 Folder 2  Folder 3 Folder 4

   1 2 3 4

   Folder 1 Folder 2  Folder 3 Folder 4

8. Open the file template.txt generated in the step above and copy the line that looks similar to this into your Clipboard:
   D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-<SID>)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-<SID>)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-<SID>)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA)
9. Paste this line underneath the folder names
   
   Folder 1 D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA) Folder 2 D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA) Folder 3 <span style="font-family: 'Courier 10 Pitch', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 1.5;">D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA) </span>Folder 4 D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA)

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

   Folder 1 D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA) Folder 2 D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA) Folder 3 <span style="font-family: 'Courier 10 Pitch', Courier, monospace; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 1.5;">D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA) </span>Folder 4 D:PAI(D;;DTSD;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;S-1-5-21-&lt;SID&gt;)(A;OICI;FA;;;DA)(A;OICI;FA;;;BA)

10. Save the file.
    NOTE: Make sure you save it in Unicode (UTF-16) format. If you do not then ICACLS will generate an error. I personally used my favorite editor Notepad++ and selected Encoding->Encode in ECS-2 Little Endian.
    The error will look something like this:
    
    E:\Targetfolder\??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????: The system cannot find the file specified. Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 1 files

    1 2	E:\Targetfolder\??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????: The system cannot find the file specified. Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 1 files

11. Once this is complete you can run icacls /restore to copy the permissions
    icacls E:\Targetfolders\ /restore E:\templates\template.txt

NOTE: There may be a way to output the get-childitem results directly to a Unicode format file, but I did not have the time to research this.