Hi All,

I have recently had to perform a full reinstall of Vista Ultimate due to some hardware issues, unfortunately during the diagnostic I installed 3/4 half installs of vista - graphics card was the problem and would not let me complete full install.

After replacing the graphics and power supply I have got my Pc back up and running with the Master Vista install which is great. Unfortunately I had 3 windows.old folders that I would like to delete to free up some space but I have run in to a problem.


I managed to delete the first windows.old folder without too many problems but I keep getting an error message when trying to delete the remaining 2 folders windows.old.001 and windows.old.002.

The error suggests I do not have the correct privillege to complete the task, I have ran in to similar problems with vista previously and would class myself as a highly competent user and have always managed to find the solution. Unfortunately I'm getting a little stuck with the above problem and I was hoping you could help resolve the issue.

I know what you guys will probably suggest first so I will list the steps I have already taken.

My User Account is the Administrator and the only account on the Pc.

I have went in to the C: of the Partition and changed the Owner of the folder to my username.

I have went in to the properties of both folders and my username in the security tab is listed with full permissions on both Windows.old folders. This is also the case for the Administrator User.

I am quite confused as to why I am unable to delete 2 non-system folders from my pc when I am the administrator with full access. Neither of the folders are locked by any additional process or programs other than explorer.exe.


I'm sure a similar query may have been asked on the forum in the past so would be very grateful if you guys would kindly point me in the right direction.

Kind Regards
wezwez

You could give Unlocker a try :
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
It always worked for me.

Best wishes,
John!

Thanks for the reply John,

Normally that would work as I have also used Unlocker for some time now. Unfortunately as stated above it's not that the folders are locked as sunch. Unlocker only shows explorer.exe which is the os so it does not work.

Any other takers?

Kind Regards
wezwez

Have you tried booting into safemode as the administrator and deleting them?

Do you have UAC turned off?

I will try Safe Mode when I retun from work however I am not too confident it will work. I guess I really would like to address the issue as to why it will not delete in normal operating mode.

UAC is switched off - sorry I should have mentioed that

Thanks for the suggestion.

You will be able to delete those files if you take ownership and change permissions of the Windows.old folders. See Section 2 (d) of THIS guide for how to do that, in particular the bit about removing the folder Boot.

Obviously the guide I pointed you to doesn't apply, but how to change permissions and take ownership so that you can delete the folders you want to does. I like to go to safe mode and log on as Administrator to delete items like that because I never setup or use an Administrator account for normal mode and that's quite different to a normal user account with admin rights.

Thanks Gravity, I will give the guide a go to see if I missed anything and will report back,

Kind regards

Well guys just thought I would post back to close the topic off.

Unfortunately I had a major system issue after using Evidence Eliminator to try and delete one of the windows folders while I was at work. I tried to perform a system restore from the command line as most of the standard install folders were missing including system restore.

The only restore point listed was during the same day the problem occured, which was odd as I knew there were several.

Long story shoryt - I completed a fresh formal install and everything is fine as I always backup to an external drive so did not loose any data.

Just wanted to say thanks for the pointers and the guide on pwermissions will also come in handy.

Kind Regards
wezwez