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Microsoft => Microsoft Windows => Windows Vista and 7 => Topic started by: veritasffg on July 15, 2009, 03:21:54 PM

Title: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: veritasffg on July 15, 2009, 03:21:54 PM

For reasons not necessary for this issue, I saved a few "My Documents" files from another person's XP compute to a backup drive on my Vista Hm Premium PC.  Now, even though I have Administrator status, I can not delete these documents.  I've googled and searched, but have come up dry.  Each time I try to delete, I'm prompted to elevate the action to Administrator status, which I do, but it still doesn't work.  Any suggestions out there?

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: Archer on July 16, 2009, 05:17:26 AM

   Follow this link (http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/how-to-take-ownership-and-full-control-permissions-of-files-and-folders-in-vista/); take an ownership of the folder.

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: veritasffg on July 16, 2009, 01:25:15 PM

For Archer:  Thanks for your reply and for the link.  I have been thru this process twice - being very careful each time to exactly follow the instructions.  I now am shown to have  full control of the files - but Vista still will not allow me to delete the files - reporting that I do not have permission to delete them.  I should advise you that before I sent the post to this forum, I had established ownership and full control of the files (per the properties records), but I went thru the process twice again to make sure I had done all that was supposed to be done.  If you or anyone else happen to have any other suggestions - they would be most welcome.

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: Mulreay on July 16, 2009, 06:28:05 PM

Can you not re-attach the drive to the other computer and delete them from there?

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: Archer on July 17, 2009, 02:52:26 AM

   I'm not sure if You tried the below steps...
   After You've become an owner - click Advanced on lower right of the 'Security' tab;   on the first tab ('Permissions')  of the popped up 'Advanced Security Settings' window select Your owner account; click 'Change' and make sure You have the full access; then check the box prompting for 'Replace permissions for all child objects...' (the second checkbox on the 'Permissions' tab of 'Advanced Security Settings' window) and then confirm changes.

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: patio on July 17, 2009, 06:59:37 AM

Delete them in safemode....are you logged on as Admin ? ?

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: veritasffg on July 17, 2009, 07:55:28 AM

For Archer:  Yes - I checked the box for the child folders inheritance - but I get a window saying that the change fails.             

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: veritasffg on July 17, 2009, 07:57:19 AM

For Patio:  I thought of this also, but, unfortunately, while I can set Administrator passwords in XP, the same process does not work for Vista.  Can you outline, or point me to an outline of, the steps for this process?

Thanks.

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: morton007 on July 17, 2009, 10:49:08 AM

try going in to saf mode and geting rid of what ever is in the folder and then just give the my documents folder to the purson

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: Mulreay on July 17, 2009, 10:59:02 AM

Quote from: morton007 on July 17, 2009, 10:49:08 AM

try going in to saf mode and geting rid of what ever is in the folder and then just give the my documents folder to the purson

I'm not sure... but I think that is not going to work and is unnecessary.

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: morton007 on July 17, 2009, 02:29:26 PM

how not i mean if they get ride of there stuff then the purson can keep wot he/she wants in it

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: veritasffg on July 17, 2009, 02:39:44 PM

Thanks to all who posted.  After a lot of Googling, I found info on how to activate the Administrator account in Vista - and of course I thought I was home free.  Not in this world.  Apparently, the permissions are screwed up on this set of files, and nothing is going to fix it.  Fortunately, the files are on a partition which I use for temporary storage of large amounts of data.  So, I guess I'll move everything else of value off the partition, and reformat the damned files out of existence.

Again, thanks to all who posted.  At least I did learn how to activate the Administrator account (and to disable it) in Vista.  So all is not lost.  By the way, some forum members might be surprised to see how much inaccurate technical stuff exists out there in www land.

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: patio on July 17, 2009, 06:51:13 PM

I'm still puzzled as to why the files cannot be deleted if you are logged in as Admin and delete them from safemode...
This should work.

Are there any details you have left out perhaps ? ?

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: veritasffg on July 17, 2009, 07:10:20 PM

Patio:

No omitted details I can think of.  I have no better luck in safe mode (logged in as Administrator) than in regular bootup.  Only difference is, when I try to delete either the topmost folder, or the lowest file in the folder structure, instead of getting error messages, the deletion effort just fails without complaint.  Like you (I suspect), I'd really like to know why this problem exists, but I'm thinking that may never happen.

Thanks for your interest.

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: patio on July 17, 2009, 08:02:00 PM

Use KillBox...

Use with caution !

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: morton007 on July 21, 2009, 02:58:00 PM

i dont think killer box is the best thing to try i used it and it crashed ma laptop

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: patio on July 21, 2009, 07:38:18 PM

It's KillBox and what were you trying to remove when it crashed your machine ? ?

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: BC_Programmer on July 21, 2009, 07:53:03 PM

yeah that's almost as stupid as that darn format.com. why, I ran that tool on my C: drive, and bam! Everything was gone!

Title: Re: How do I delete "My Documents" files from other Users moved to a different PC?
Post by: morton007 on July 22, 2009, 04:42:35 AM

some pics i didnot need on ma pc some sofwear sutuff i dident need or that i had the upgrad of