Hi everyone! I'm not really tech-savvy and tried to make some space on my D: drive by robocopying some program files because they were taking up a lot of room. However, now I can't delete those files, and I keep getting a message saying I can't delete them because they're in use or something similar. I managed to use WinRAR to compress and free up about 10-15GB, but I still have around 20GB of files I can't access. I've followed several tutorials to give myself full permissions, but nothing seems to work. Can anyone help me figure this out?
5 Answers
Program Files is a protected directory, and it sounds like you might encounter permission issues. If you can't delete it normally, look into booting up with a rescue disk or using tools designed to manage those protected files directly.
If a restart didn't help, you could try using PowerShell with admin rights to navigate to that folder and forcefully delete the files. If that still doesn't work, consider booting from a USB with a live environment and delete the files from there.
Be cautious when deleting folders in Program Files! It's better to use tools like WinDirStat to visualize your space usage and uninstall programs properly instead of manually deleting files.
I had a similar issue! Use the command `rd /s "\?D:Program Files"` to delete everything in that folder. I managed to remove everything except AnyDesk, so if that's the case for you too, just uninstall it afterward.
There's no need for a rescue disk! There are many guides online that show how to take ownership of protected files in Windows, using the built-in file security settings.
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