What does NTSTATUS 0x8000000C (STATUS_GUID_SUBSTITUTION_MADE) mean?

 
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E_CHANGED_STATEHRESULTWindows
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STATUS_GUID_SUBSTITUTION_MADE

A GUID-to-SID translation completed with a substitute prefix

STATUS_GUID_SUBSTITUTION_MADE is a warning-level result from a security identifier translation path. The important detail is that Windows security ultimately evaluates SIDs, whose binary form contains a revision, an identifier authority, and subauthorities. The reported translation did not find an administratively defined GUID prefix and used a substitute prefix instead.

This should be treated as a provenance and access-shape warning rather than as proof of a corrupt ACL. The NTSTATUS definition explicitly says the substitution does not compromise system security, but it can produce access that is more restrictive than intended. That distinction matters when a protection operation technically completes yet a principal later receives less access than the administrator expected.

Capture the source GUID, resulting SID, target file-system operation, and the security descriptor before and after translation. Use SID-aware tools and APIs to compare identifier authority and subauthority components; do not compare textual names alone because name resolution can hide the binary identity that is actually stored. If the issue follows a migration or namespace change, verify the administrative mapping configuration used by the translating component instead of manually editing the substituted SID in-place.

What to inspect

  • Log both the original GUID and the final binary/textual SID produced by translation.
  • Compare effective access with the intended policy because the warning can indicate unexpectedly restrictive protection.
  • Investigate the mapping authority or migration configuration that performs translation; do not invent a GUID prefix from the status name.

References


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