Deleting undeletable files

Did you ever wanted to delete something but your computer didn’t let you? Here is guide on how delete ALL files – access denied, files in use and so on.

1. Folder Access Denied – You need permission to perform this action

It often happens when you have some left-over’s from previous windows installation that you want to delete. Ownership element is then set not on your administrator account, so here is what you need to do:

Choose highest possible folder that you don’t have access of. For example if you want to delete files in “c:\Program Files\Movie maker”, do those steps for to “c:\Program Files”. This way you are sure that you will have access to “Movie maker” folder as well as to every folder in “Program files”

Take Ownership by right clicking on folder with access denied and then go to > properties > Security > Advanced > Owner > Edit > Select Administrators account – check “Replace Owner on subcontainers and objects > Apply > Close all properties windows.

Set Permissions by right clicking on folder that you just took ownership of, then > properties > Security > Advanced > Change Permissions > Remove every permission entries and select “Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent” and “Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object” > Apply > Close all properties windows.

Now, you should be able to delete all files inside this folder. Hope it works for you!

Note(XP): It is possible that you don’t see “security” tab, to fix it, go to: Folder Options > Click the View tab > click to clear the “Use simple file sharing” check box.

This is useful when you are switching from one OS to another and you don’t want to do the format after successful switch.

2. File in use

In most cases this is simply because that you want to delete file that you forgot to close, but sometimes it is really hard to figure out what application can have this file opened and sometimes it is some kind of virus. That’s why you need to use application that is deleting this file before system boots up (after restart) this way, if your system has permission to this files, they will be deleted.

Simplest tool seems to be Boot Deleter. You just add right click menu for time when you want to delete something on restart, it deletes it and then, you can simply get rid of this button.

If anyone knows some good way to do those stuff, please write us a comment.