Program Request

Im sick and tired of not being in complete control of my computer. At various times ive been told that im not allowed to delete certain files. I can find no reason for this, seeing as i am the sys admin, except that windows is a pain in the a**. If someone could recomend a program that would give me the ability to delete anything i choose, i would be greatful. Btw its not like im trying to delete system files, or anything important like that, i simply want the remains of certain programs off my laptop. (i.e. AOL, Quicktime)


Thx,
Ubergeek

 

Operating System please?

 

Well you could try DelLater from DiamondCS. Be wary though......it is a huge 3kb in download size .

Regards,
Jade.

 

I checked the link - not sure if it works with XP.
Using Win98se I exit to DOS and delete such files without any problems (as a precaution I first make a backup).

 

Aurelius,

I just downloaded and tested DelLater on XP. Works perfectly.

Has a nice popup confirmation of the file that's designated for death at the next boot.
I put it in the root, C:, for easy path access.
All you have to do is get a command prompt at C:\ > and type in dellater.exe<space>Driveletter\Folderpath\fullfilenamewithextension, and hit Enter, to get the popup confirmation.
Then reboot.
I used it on a locked Windows file to test it.

And you sure can't fault it for taking up too much disk real estate!

Thanks, Jabber. I PM'd you about it.

 

It's probably because it's in use. Try deleting it in safe mode.

Also, make sure you have rights to modify it.

 

to be able to delete it

kill the process that is keeping that program in use

ctrl-alt-del then look at the processes and kill the one that's running the app.

 

Ahhhh, but,

Hence the need for a _tiny_ utility like DelLater .

Regards,
Jade.

 

The problem with deletefing files on Windows is that the Administrator account does not actually control the computer because of the way Windows is designed so many files can probably not be removed by you because they were possibly created with higher priviliges. [sp]

 

Very true .

Regards,
Jade.

BTW....have a look at their source code for DelLater, or maybe you already have.

 

Ewwww.... MASM syntax

 

admins can do anything, even if the files were created with a higher power. You just have to modify the right attributes and files.

 

LocalSystem is the highest count, Administrator is lower because Windows complies to orange book B1 standards that say the highest account must not be avaiable to users (or something to that degree).

ie. Try killing System process or deleting a system dll or binary (kernel32.exe?), of course.... I'm not responsible if it does work

 

... and the answer to robo's question is Yes. That's the locked file I tried it on. Kerzap! Now, I already had a cmd file I used every weekend to zap my main index.dat, but it was a touch kludgy, because it added a shortcut to the Startup folder in Programs, and then deleted that shortcut when it (the cmd) finished running. I've put the DelLater exe into a one-click shortcut with the main index.dat preset as target in it (it doesn't want quotation marks, even for spaces in folder and file names, BTW, cuz,...well, it doesn't), and now that I've tested it thoroughly and found that it works and works perfectly, I'll click that shortcut once a week and bid adieu to the main index.dat the next morning at first boot.

Yah. I dumped the source code file in the trash a few secs after I opened it to look, BUT I've kept the handy-dandy little exe, since it tested out really well ... and gives me a neat way to dump that ANNOYING index.dat in my Username\Loc Setts\TIFs\Content.IE5 that just keeps groooowing and groooowing and ... (you get the idea) if you don't kill it once in a while, AND the derned thing is very easily corrupted, and when it's corrupted, all kinds of crap happens, so ... once a week, every week, it's "So long, index.dat!"

 

Yah, well ... Turkey: EVERYthing's easy when you get sumbuddy ELSE to do the slogging work!

Seriously, though, I was interested enough to give 'er the required runs on my spare machine (aka my wife's computer), and it works like a charm, so I've set it up and run it a couple of times on the main box, and it passes with flying colours there, too.

Woohoo! Gottawinner, gottawinner. Thanks again, Jabberwock.

 

(1) Yeah, we Canucks know how to spell, as well as ski and make maple sugar.
(2) I dunno. Why wouldn't it be? You using the old Task Scheduler, or something fancier? Oughta work anyhow. And try SAYING scheduleable four times fast, and you'll see why it's not in your dictionary OR your WordWeb.
(3) Oughta be right under your shortcut to it. If not, go get 'er. It's a very handy lookuppable tool (referenceable, that is).
http://wordweb.info/free/

 

OS

um for the moment my OS is WinXP, but i will be switching to mandrake soon

 

Thank you

Thx for all the advice guys. i will be sure to post any pending problems i encounter with win xp......keep the board space flowing, cause i can see a lo of those commin...

 

Index.dat For IE ?

Cause When I Do A Search I Get Like LOTS 19 of them Index.dat Files ...

What One Or ALL Do I Del ?

lol .. Thanks

 

WW,

The one that's of interest (the ONLY one that's of interest out of the 20-odd index.dat files) is the active tracker of each user's online activity in IE. It's readable if you use an Administrator login to get to it, and lots of programs will access it for you if you can't see it in Explorer. I use "Empty Temp Folders 283" MG LINK HERE for this.

It's in your Docs and Setts, Username, Local Setts, TIFs, Content.IE5 folder.

DelLater (see the posts way above in this thread) will kill it for you if you wish, at the next boot. And it's easy to set up a one-click shortcut for that purpose, and it could be added to Task Scheduler, if you wanted to go that route. Just set the path for DelLater as above, with index.dat as the target.

I've read somewhere that if you access it, open it in Notepad, and delete the contents, you can then change it to Read-Only, and it won't track any more, but I guess I don't think MS would make it that easy to stop the tracker. Deleting it frequently at reboot is a more believable way of handling it.