How can I delete or uninstall Vista (and an program files) on an external drive?
I've removed my 2.5" sata drive from my previous laptop and am now using it as an external but the windows and program files folders take up 30 GB which is essentially wasted
space. When i try to remove them I get told i need permission from TrustedInstaller to do so, I've tried changing the OWNER permissions to administrator or my login but even as those it still gives me the same error (albeit replacing 'TrustedInstaller'
with whatever have changed the permissions to.
I'm not sure if its relevant but my current laptop runs Windows 7 rather than Vista
Thanks
May 21st, 2012 8:43am
Here is HotTo from HelpDeskGeek.com:
Did you know that a lot of files in Windows 7 are not owned by you, even if
you are the Administrator? They are instead owned by an entity called the
Trusted Installer. Such a wonderful sounding name eh!
So thats not a problem most of the time, unless you need to delete certain
system files and folders. Youll end up getting a message like:
You do not have permission to perform this action.
or something like:
You need authorization from TrustedInstaller in order to perform this
action.
Thanks Windows! So in order to delete a file that is owned by
TrustedInstaller, you have to first take ownership of the files or folders and
then grant yourself full control permissions and rights!
You have to do all of that just to be able to rename, delete, or edit these
files and folders. In this article, Ill walk you through the steps in order to
do this.
First, go to the folder or set of files that you need to change permissions
for, right-click on them and choose Properties.
Next click on the Security tab and then click on the
Advanced button at the bottom:
Next click on the Owner tab and youll now see that the current owner is
TrustedInstaller.
Now click on the Edit button and choose who you would like to change the
owner to, either your account or the Administrators. If your account is an
Administrator account, I would suggest just picking Administrators.
You can also check off Replace owner on subcontainers and
objects if you need to delete more than one file in a folder. Go ahead
and click OK. Now you will see that the Current owner is the account you
picked.
Click OK until you have closed all properties windows and are back to the
Windows Explorer screen. Then right-click on the folder or file again and choose
Properties again.
Now click on the Security tab again, but instead of clicking on Advanced, you
need to click the Edit button.
Now click on the user name in the list that you want to change the
permissions for, which should be the same as who you changed the current owner
too. If the user name is not in the list, click Add, type in the name and click
OK.
Since I had changed the current owner to Administrators, I clicked on
Administrators here and then clicked on the check box next to Full
Control. When you do that, all the other boxes get checked too.
Click OK once and then click OK one more time to get back to Windows
Explorer. Now you can delete those files without any UAC messages telling you
that you cant! Enjoy!
HTH
Milos
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May 21st, 2012 1:00pm