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I'm trying to delete a few files that I created, and I have full permissions on, on a Windows 2008 system.

The files are within a folder that I created so they are not system files of any kind.

The message box that pops up when I try to delete the file is titled "Destination Folder Access Denied", and the message is "you need to confirm this operation", with a continue, skip or cancel button.

I disabled UAC and rebooted to see if this would make the message go away -- it did not. However, with UAC disabled I am able to click on continue and the files are deleted.

With UAC enabled I had to provide elevated credientials before the files would delete.

What causes this behaviour and how can I remove it?

Richard West
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1 Answers1

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Are you trying to delete files from the Windows folders or the Program Files folders or some other protected folder?

There's really no way to stop this if you are deleting from a system folder as Windows is trying to make sure that you don't destroy the OS by accident.

mrdenny
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  • No -- these are files and folders that I have created in a folder I created off the root of the drive. Therefore Windows should not be trying to protect them in any special way. – Richard West Sep 20 '10 at 18:47
  • In my experience, folders and files created directly in the root are going to do this by default, and there's no way around it. Microsoft would prefer you to create files and folders either in your User folder, or on a separate, non-system, drive. –  Sep 20 '10 at 19:43
  • The root of the drive would be considered a protected folder as Windows doesn't want you creating or deleting stuff in the root folder. – mrdenny Sep 20 '10 at 21:57
  • Just to clairify -- these files are loceted within a subfolder that I created off of the root. The comments here lead one to believe that MS now considers the C: drive thier property and a user should expect no rights to actually create anything on this drive. That does not really make sense to me. I understand protecting system folders, etc, but to claim ownership of the entire drive seems a bit overreaching. To add to that thought - this "folder" off the root is actually an NTFS mount point to a seperate physical drive. These details were left out becuase I did not think they would matter. – Richard West Sep 22 '10 at 01:33
  • The fact that it might be a mount point could do the trick. Windows would see the first level folder within a mount point as the root of a disk. – mrdenny Sep 22 '10 at 21:13
  • Does it behave the same if you Shift+Delete? – Chris Feb 21 '11 at 16:28
  • While I realize this question is dated, I just ran into the same issue, except I'm even working with files on a separate drive and still seeing it. Strangely, it only shows up if I select the file and press the delete key, but it does not appear if I right-click the file and select delete that way. – JuniorIncanter Jul 14 '14 at 15:06