Having trouble deleting files? Try this

If you're just upgraded to Windows 7, you may notice that the old system files are still on your hard disk, taking up precious hard disk space, under C:\Windows.old.  So after determining that the files are no longer needed and can be safely deleted, you try to delete them.  The following errors appear: "You require permission from ... to make changes to this file."  And you're an admin on the machine.  What to do?

The fix is to do the following:

1. Change the Owner of the folder and all its child objects to you.  The instructions in detail are:

  a)  Right-click on the folder, and click on Properties. The Properties window should appear.

  b)  Click on the Security tab, then click on Advanced.  The Advanced Security Settings window should appear.

  c)  Click on the Owner tab, then click on Edit.  Change owner to you, then click to check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects.  Click OK.  You should see a dialog telling you that it is changing ownership of files.  Wait for it to finish.

2.  Change the Permissions of the folder and all its child objects for Administrators to Full control.  To do this:

  a)  On the Advanced Security Settings window, click on the Permissions tab.  Click on Change Permissions. 

  b)  Other than Administrators, remove all other Permission entries, leaving one Adminstrators entry remaining. 

  c)  Click on the Administrators entry, and click to check Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object.  Then click on Edit and click to check Full control.  Click on OK, and OK again.  A dialog should pop up, click Yes to continue, and Yes again.  You should see a dialog telling you that it is setting security information on files.  Wait for it to finish.

Now that you are the owner and have Full control permissions, to the folder and all its child objects, you can delete the folder.

Hope this helps!

- Ricky