Windows 7 indicates "you need permission to perform this action" (deleting file)

Question

I'm logged in as an Administrator on Windows 7. When I try to delete a folder (which shows Security settings indicating that Administrators have FULL access) I get a message that :

You require permission from SYSTEM to make changes to this file.

I don't have any other user accounts on this computer.

What's up with this?

Answer 1

I figured it out:

The file is owned by SYSTEM (system service)

You have to change the ownership via command line: takeown /f (this is from How To Geek which then recommends using the CACLS command but that's been deprecated and it's easier to do it via the Security interface)

Right click the file and choose Properties> Security tab> choose Administrators (if you are one) then set the Edit Permissions, setting it to FULL.

Answer 2

It was my company's anti-virus software not allowing the download. It would download the file, then say:

You require permissions from DOMAIN\USER to make changes to this file

Even though I am a domain admin. I disabled my anti-virus (in this case VIPRE) and it worked. Downloaded the file just fine. VIPRE thought FileZilla was a "known bad" in its application rating, and it was blocking the download.

Answer 3

In my case I was trying to delete a folder from a network share which was write-protected.

Because the PCs had similar names I didn't realize that I was working on the remote folder instead of the local folder.

Solution: simply delete the correct (local) folder.