Cannot delete a folder in windows 7

I dont understand how i can grant permission to myself if I'm the owner. Please help me. Was this reply helpful? Yes No. Sorry this didn't help. Thanks for your feedback. Hi Luke 7, welcome. Could you share with us more details as which new folder you created and how you bypassed usual permissions and message errors if any? This thread is locked. The Overflow Blog. Podcast Helping communities build their own LTE networks.

Podcast Making Agile work for data science. Featured on Meta. New post summary designs on greatest hits now, everywhere else eventually. Related Hot Network Questions. Method 1. Delete files with Command Prompt Method 2. Enter Safe Mode to delete files Method 3. Repair disk errors Method 4. Free software to delete files that cannot be deleted Method 1.

Delete files with Command Prompt You can use the built-in tool, Command Prompt to execute a deletion command to delete a file or a folder. Then restart your PC, it will exit the Safe Mode. Method 3. Repair disk errors Another cause of failing to delete files is errors on the disk. Still Need Help? This is what I did to delete it.

These are the steps I followed in windows 7 while logged on under administrator Once you are back in the 'advanced security settings' window follow these instructions Note: You MAY have to close out the properties window altogether and then re-open it for the above changes to take effect before performing the next set of steps.

Sometimes you can't delete a file or a folder because the filename or a file which is in the folder contains a hidden character. Once you have a Command Prompt open, navigate to that particular folder, and open it.

I used Windows cleanup. I accomplished this by following this tutorial. Its for Windows 8 but works just as well for Windows 7. Just use this text, save it in. I've encountered this problem a few times.

I've concluded that something in the OS or some background app has a file or folder open, and the system won't let the operation proceed. The error messages are probably somewhat bogus -- they get an error back and assume it's an auth error. Never tried to "fix" this since for me it's just an irritation, not a "real" problem. And what's one more irritation from Windows, in the grand scheme of things?

I could not move a folder with two sub-folders and files. It was an old folder, so there was no way anything imaginable could have been using it. I used resource monitor "search" box, above right section of the handle-and-file sub-window under CPU activity to verify that the Explorer process window did have something associated. The ONLY process associated with them was the display window Explorer and they seem to only have been there because they were within the list of folders being displayed.

No other processes were active. Otherwise, there were no active processes using these files or folders. I checked for lock files or other odd things like hidden or system files and there were none.

The command prompt didn't help. Each item had the same name, and I could not move the parent folder in DOS either. I managed to use Windows Explorer to move each folder's files to another folder even used the same folder names, but did not copy the name in case an invisible character was there.

After moving files, I deleted the folders. Then I put them all in a duplicate file structure right where the old one "was", to see if I could I could.