I'll see if I can help ... Please note I am running Mac OS 10.5.8, and this may be slightly different on other versions.
Currently, I have no way of checking for any differences.
Open
Applications, then
Utilities then find the file
Terminal.app -- click on that to open
NOTE: In the following I will use the _ (underscore) symbol to indicate a blank space. Do No type the _ system or nothing here will work at all.
My comments will be placed between { } brackets. Do Not type in the brackets or anything between them.
Type the following in the Terminal window.
cd_/ {That's "cd" followed by a space followed by a forward leaning "/"}
ls_-l {That's "ls" followed by a space followed by the minus sign "-" followed by a lower case "l' }
You should see something like the following:
drwxr-xr-x+ 103 root staff 3502 Jun 6 17:32 Applications
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root staff 16384 Nov 2 2008 Desktop DB
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root staff 107970 Nov 2 2008 Desktop DF
drwxrwxr-x+ 56 root admin 1904 Jun 6 17:24 Library
drwxr-xr-x@ 2 root wheel 68 Sep 5 2008 Network
-rw-rw-rw- 1 laptop admin 2 Mar 1 18:30 Shockwave Log
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Aug 29 2009 System
drwxr-xr-x 5 root admin 170 Oct 26 2008 Users
drwxrwxrwt@ 6 root admin 204 Jun 6 17:32 Volumes
drwxr-xr-x@ 40 root wheel 1360 Aug 29 2009 bin
drwxrwxr-t@ 2 root admin 68 Sep 5 2008 cores
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Jun 6 17:03 dev
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Sep 20 2008 etc -> private/etc
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1 Jun 6 17:03 home
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 10367028 Aug 11 2009 mach_kernel
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 10822172 Aug 11 2009 mach_kernel.ctfsys
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1 Jun 6 17:03 net
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root wheel 204 Sep 20 2008 private
drwxr-xr-x@ 66 root wheel 2244 Apr 17 19:27 sbin
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Sep 20 2008 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x@ 12 root wheel 408 Nov 16 2008 usr
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Sep 20 2008 var -> private/var
For the Applications folder as shown above, the "
owner" is "
root" and the "
group" it belongs to is set as "
staff".
Please note, I am NOT convinced that the group is set correctly, I can only say that it is working for me.
For future reference write down what is currently showing as "group" and "owner" on your system.
If you wish to change the owner of Applications, enter the following in the Terminal window:
sudo chown root Applications
You will be prompted for your password. Enter it and press return.
To verify that the change has been made, enter:
ls_-l
once again. Remember the "_" indicates a space.
To change the group, enter the following:
sudo chgrp staff Applications
You should not be prompted for your password again.
verify the change with the "ls_-l" command as before.
I hope you can follow these rambling instructions and that they work for you.