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You Require Permission From System to Make Changes to this Folder

Anonymous
2020-07-07T22:11:44+00:00

Hello, 

I'm trying to clean up one of my hard disk from files and software that I do not use anymore, for some reason I can't delete a bunch of folders included an XML document because I require permission from System, which left me with a big **** considering that I'm the only user and the administrator I find bizarre that I can't delete what I want. 

I've tried to look on youtube in order to find a solution as well on forum but even if sometime the article was talking about how to solve the problem on Windows 10, the screenshots didn't really match Windows 10, which is the OS I'm using. 

Finally I menaged to open the properties of the folder. SYSTEM already has the tick to get full access but everything is in grey. I moved the ownership to administrator but there's not way to edit the gray area and tick the line for the full access. 

Is there any cmd command line to bypass this absurdity?

thanks

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-07-07T22:26:09+00:00

    Hello,

    My Name is Chander, a Microsoft Independent Advisor and a fellow Windows 10 user like you. I hope I can help you on your concern.

    You may use PSEXEC tool to run command prompt as system account and then delete the files\folders.

    Download from here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/d...

    Extract the download in a folder, go to elevated cmd, change directory to the folder where you extracted the files. then run following

    PsExec64.exe -s cmd

    Press agree, now you are running cmd with system account. you can verify by running whoami command. the output should be nt authority\system

    Then change directory to the direcotry where you want to delete files\folder and use del or rd command to delete files and folder.

    Note - do not delete any system files, it may affect your computer.

    Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

    6 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-08T13:56:54+00:00

    Here is an example where I deleted Test folder on C drive using Psexec

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-08T13:40:51+00:00

    Hello, 

    thanks for your reply but it's a bit confusing, can you be more clear?

    "go to elevated cmd" what do you mean? To run the cmd prompt window?

    "change directory to the folder where you extracted the files" what do you mean? use the cmd prompt to go into the folder where I have installed PsExec64.exe and in the cmd run "PsExec64.exe -s"? 

    If so too late. I've instead clicked on the .exe file, which opened the cmd window and a pop up that was asking to click on the "agree" button, which I did, not it's not anymore possible open the PsExec64.exe by clicking on it.

    If now in the cmd, within the directory where I've installed PSTools, I run "PsExec64.exe -s" I simply see the list of commands associated with file and if I run "whoami" I do not see system but the name of my PC and user.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-08T13:49:50+00:00

    Sorry About that, Let me be more precise.

    Elevated command prompt meas - start - sear for cmd - right click and run as administrator.

    Once you are in elevated command prompt, the default location should be "C:\WINDOWS\system32"

    You need to change it to the folder where you extracted the PSexec files using cd command.

    Then run psexec64.exe -s cmd.exe to run the command prompt with system rights.

    then change the directory to C: or whatever location where you want to delete files.

    Please see screenshot.

    Let me know if you have any doubts.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-09T14:49:02+00:00

    Hello there, 

    thank you for the more detailed explanation. It worked with some file, but it didn't worked with everything. 

    Three directories located in:

    • programdata\packages
    • user\username\appdata\local\packages
    • programfiles\windowsapps

    can not be deleted. In the cmd they seems deleted, because I do not get any error like for the files I've managed to delete, but then when I use the software "Quick Search" to perform a search in Windows, the directories I need to delete are still within the respective directories path mentioned above

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