rsync but keep destination ownership without setting to source ownership

I've got some files which I would like to sync to a linux server. Only problem is it resets the ownership and group to the current user and group.

Unfortunately the options --owner, --group, and --archive are somewhat unworkable because the source is a windows machine. (it's ownership doesn't make sense on the server)

Any way to keep destination ownership unchanged?

Command i'm using (minimal example):

rsync SRC $remote:DEST

Try rsync -azvr something somwhere:/location/.

Identify the user and group on the remote end. Example user "user1" and group "user1".

1. add "--chown user1:user1" to your rsync command

2. Alternatively if your version of rsync does not support that, on the remote, run "chown -R user1:user1 *" inside the highest folder of your destination file tree and this will recursively reown everything to user1. (WARNING: this syntax also changes everything in the current folder)