Setting File Permissions in Windows with PHP

Thanks to the comment left on my original post I was able to figure it out with a little more help from http://www.howyoudo.info/index.php/how-to-fix-windows-server-upload-file-inherit-permissions-error/

The problem only happens when you use PHP to upload a file. When you upload a file, PHP sends the file to a temporary directory on the hard drive (for me it is C:\Windows\Temp) and then copies it over to it’s intended directory. Once the file has landed in the temporary directory, it is assigned the permissions of that directory. The problem is when Windows copies that file, it keeps the temporary directory’s permissions and doesn’t inherit your web directory’s permissions.

The easiest way to fix this problem is to add to the temporary directory your intended web directory’s permissions. There’s no need to erase the permissions already in the temporary directory, just add the web directory’s permissions to them. In other words, follow these steps

1. To change the permissions of your temporary upload directory, find the “upload_tmp_dir” in your php.ini file.
2. Set it to the directory of your choosing (outside your web folders of course) or leave it at default (for me it is C:\Windows\Temp).
3. Browse to this folder and add the permissions of your web folders to it.

While Brian Leishman's answer will work, if you do not have the ability to edit permissions on the temp folder, you can make your uploaded file inherit permissions from its new location manually with the following on the command line:

icacls "target.txt" /q /c /reset

So, using PHP's exec() function:

exec( 'icacls "target.txt" /q /c /reset' );

For details of the various icacls flags, see: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753525.aspx

Tip: Using the /t flag, you can use pattern matching to process multiple files.