# "You need permission to perform this action"



## jnhay

That's the error message that comes up when I try to delete the folder I just downloaded a few minutes earlier. I'm the only user on this computer, so I don't understand why I can't just send the folder to the recycle bin? Any help?


----------



## 1 g0t 0wn3d

Did you download this from a p2p like limewire?


----------



## jnhay

I got it from softpedia.com, I now see Vista wasn't included under requirements, but I should still be able to delete it shouldn't I?


----------



## Leumas

I had the same message when trying to install an printer, you have to install your self as the administrator. heres what I had to do.
1. Click start windows button
2.click programs
3. click accessories
4. Right Click command prompt and slect run as Adminstrator
5. click continue
6. type in witth out quotes "net user administrator /antive:yes
7. enter
8. restart computer


----------



## Oceanborn

Leumas said:


> I had the same message when trying to install an printer, you have to install your self as the administrator. heres what I had to do.
> 1. Click start windows button
> 2.click programs
> 3. click accessories
> 4. Right Click command prompt and slect run as Adminstrator
> 5. click continue
> 6. type in witth out quotes "net user administrator /active:yes
> 7. enter
> 8. restart computer


Or....you can disable UAC control altogether and stop the annoying messages once and for all...

Control panel, user accounts, disable UAC control


----------



## ray207

Leumas said:


> I had the same message when trying to install an printer, you have to install your self as the administrator. heres what I had to do.
> 1. Click start windows button
> 2.click programs
> 3. click accessories
> 4. Right Click command prompt and slect run as Adminstrator
> 5. click continue
> 6. type in witth out quotes "net user administrator /active:yes
> 7. enter
> 8. restart computer


Spot on! you obviously know computers, where do you get the information to do this kind of work. BTW disabling UAC has no effect on this particular situation.


----------



## VampireJesues

I just dealt with this myself. Due to problems with an installation of Windows Vista, I was left with a Windows.old folder that was in my C:\ just taking up vital space.

It was a tricky one, but using a helpful post that I saw here I was able to get things finally said and done. The key is to use the steps for ADD through to FIND NOW until you get as far down as you can go and then you can select All Access to give you every imaginable access to the files that you can get in Windows Vista.

Hope this helps and isn't too un-informative.

Ok, I made a test folder here to up the informative quality and I'll go through a quick run-down of the process

First you want to right-click the folder or the file and then you select Properties and go to the Security tab and under that you select Advanced. Then in the next window that pops up, you should already be under Permissions tab. Click the Edit button and then click the Add button in the next window. Click on Advanced, then click on Find Now and select the profile that you are using from the list and click OK. Then you are ready to click OK again to go to the list where you will select your permissions. Just select Full Control and you can do anything you like with your files/folders now.


----------



## coryb891

I get this message a lot when when I attempt to move or delete a directory and I have one or more files within that directory open in an application. First it says "You need to confirm this operation", and then it says "You need permission to perform this action". Strangely, it seems to occur only when files in subdirectories are open and not when files directly within the directory are open.

Demonstration:
1) Open up two Windows Explorer windows.
2) In one of the explorers, create a directory named "TopDir" and a subdirectory named "SubDir". Open SubDir in explorer.
3) Right-click in the SubDir folder and select "New" and then "Compressed (zipped) Folder".
4) Double-click the new zip file to open it in Explorer.
5) From the OTHER explorer window, attempt to delete the TopDir folder. You will experience this strange behavior.

If you instead tried to create the zip file directly inside of TopDir, open the zip, and then try to delete TopDir, it deletes fine.

Why do we get such a misleading error message? Something like "Cannot delete or move this directory because one or more files in this directory are in use," would be a LOT more helpful.


----------



## getincrazy

thank, I'd done all that is working.


----------



## sobeit

a folder??? from softpedia???? Usually you only download files from softpedia. Was it a folder that was created when you installed the program you downloaded or is it a folder that was part of the extraction of the file you downloaded. 

try deleting it in safemode


----------

