Access is denied

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Hello,

I am in the throes of cleaning an infected Dell Vostro machine running Vista Home Premium. There are several user profiles and I have enabled the global Administrator account. I need to delete all the files found in the users' temporary directories, internet cookies and temporary internet directories.

Even though I am logged in as global Administrator, I cannot access these folders. The message appears - Access is denied.

Any solutions will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

 

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Take ownership of the folders/files you are trying to delete.

 

Hello,

Thank you for your response.

I tried that - setting 'full control' permissions to Administrator but that didn't work.

 

If you’re the administrator for the Vista system, then you can easily do it by following these steps.


In Windows Explorer window, locate the files or folders that you want to take ownership and grant access permissions.
Right click on the file or directory.
Click on “Properties” on the right click menu.
Click on “Security” tab.
Click on “Advanced” button at the bottom.


In Advanced Security Settings dialog window, click on “Owner” tab.
Here you will be able to see current owner (i.e. TrustedInstaller).


To take ownership of the object, click on the Edit button. Give permission to UAC. Then highlight the user name in the “Change owner to” box that you want to assign as the owner for the object. Click “OK” to finish the process.
Back in Advanced Security Settings window, you will see the current owner has changed to the user you just selected.
Click “OK” button to exit this window.
Click “OK” again to exit completely from the Properties window.
Repeat step 1 to 4 to open the object’s Properties window again.
Back in object’s Properties window, click on Edit button, and confirm the UAC elevation request.
Highlight the Administrators in the “Group or user names” box. If the user ID or group that you want to manage the permissions for the object doesn’t exist, click on “Add” button, and type in the user name or group name desired into the “Enter object names to select” box, and finish off by clicking on “OK”.
In the Permissions for Administrators box below (or any other user name or group name you chose), click on “Full Control” under the “Allow” column to assign full access rights control permissions to Administrators group.


Click “OK” twice when done.
You can do whatever you like to the files or directories processed as above.

 

Hello Rob,

I am just going to work through your example now.

Thanks,
Mark

 

Rob,

When I got to the fourth line from the end in your instructions:

"In the Permissions for Administrators box below (or any other user name or group name you chose), click on “Full Control” under the “Allow” column to assign full access rights control permissions to Administrators group."

When I selected "Full Control" and 'Apply' the following error message appeared:

"Error Applying Security - C:\Users... \AppData Access is denied"

Regards

 

Did you managed to take ownership of the files? Are you sure your account is an Administrator?

 

i would have run an app first like ccleaner to do the work for me.

btw: your question reads like if it came from a book, but slightly reworded! LOL

 

Unfortunately, I am in the office and the suspect computer is at home. The office computer is on a domain and although I enabled 'Administrator' on the pc, I couldn't see it listed in the user profiles on logon, so I logged in as myself who has domain administrator privileges.

To cut a long story short, I will have to try this tonight when I get home.

Many thanks,
Mark

 

I'm all for a good challenge... but at some point, it's easier to simply salvage user files and reinstall the Dell factory image.

 

This.