How do I delete protected files?

[TehYoyo]

Hey there, all.

Recently, I received a 70GB hard drive from a friend. He had Windows XP installed on it and I just wiped it and installed Win7 onto it. It's a 'feature' of Windows to keep all the files from the previous install in a folder entitled "Windows.old". Meh. No. I don't want that. I tried to delete the files, but there was a folder titled "ea66b7d11aadd8023c53c9". Some of you might know that those folders are used for Windows updates, but occasionally they don't run. I tried to delete it, but it wouldn't even let me, even though I'm admin (I think - see below). How do I delete it?


*About admin:
So I'm the only account on the PC...but there's always another "user" listed whenever I go into permissions, etc: Administrator. Is that an actual user account and I'm not really an admin? What's going on??? ( )

 

[gnusounduave]

try taking ownership of the folder by right click > properties > security > advanced > owner > edit > select your account.

also make sure it's not a read only folder.

 

[TehYoyo]

try taking ownership of the folder by right click > properties > security > advanced > owner > edit > select your account.

also make sure it's not a read only folder.

It is a read-only folder. I unchecked the "read-only" option, but when I went back to check it again, that option had been re-applied.

 

[realmadrid12]

Go into computer management and enable the default administrator account and set a good long but something you can remember password. Than log in with that account and you "should" be able to delete it.

I say should because im not entirely sure but if you download ubuntu or any other linux distro and boot to a live cd you can browse your hdd and delete the files for sure.

 

[redduc900]

If the Windows Disk Cleanup tool doesn't detect the *.old folder in the root directory, and assuming the path to the Windows.old folder is C:\Windows.old, type the following commands from an elevated command prompt (right-click cmd.exe--> Run as Administrator)...

takeown /F C:\Windows.old\* /R /A
cacls C:\Windows.old\*.* /T /grant administrators:F
rmdir /S /Q C:\Windows.old\

 

[TehYoyo]

I ended up just deleting everything w/ command prompt running as administrator - after no files were there, I could just delete it.

But thanks.