Deleting "undeletable" files in Vista

Posted by Nik Reiman on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Nik Reiman
Published on 2009-08-07T07:09:02Z Indexed on 2012/03/18 18:05 UTC
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I recently upgraded my workstation from XP SP3 to Vista Business, and during the upgrade Windows moved my old C:\Windows directory to C:\Windows.old. I got all of the stuff I needed out of that folder, but there are six "undeletable" files there so I cannot remove it. They are:

Windows.old\Program1\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Resource\CMap\Identity-H
Windows.old\Program1\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Resource\CMap\Identity-V
Windows.old\Program1\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelper.dll
Windows.old\Program1\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelperShim.dll
Windows.old\Program1\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroPDF.dll
Windows.old\Program1\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\pdfshell.dll

Whenever I try to delete the files either through explorer or a command line, I get a permission denied error. I have tried to grant myself full permission on the files, but again, permission denied. I don't even have acrobat installed on my Vista machine, and I uninstalled Adobe updater. However, I still can't manage to get rid of these files. How do I nuke them for good?

Edit: I was able to take ownership of the files, but I still can't delete them. Renaming them did not work, as I was denied permission to do that as well. I'll try booting up in safe mode and getting rid of them there.

Edit II: Booting up into safe mode did not allow me to delete the files. Bummer.

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