JSI Tip 2331. Removing a folder owned by a deleted user can take a very long time in Windows NT 4.0.

Jerold Schulman

May 3, 2000

1 Min Read
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If you deleted a user, without first deleting the folders / files, that they owned, subsequent deletion attemps may generate:

Cannot remove folder Path:
Access Denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write protected and that the file is not currently in use.

NOTE: This is most likely if the deleted user was the only ACL on the object.

When you take ownership of the folder structure, you may receive an Access denied for each subfolder.

Using Subinacl.exe and Xcacls.exe, you can make the process easier / faster.

If you need to delete the Jerold folder and subfolders:

subinacl /subdirectories Jerold /setowner=Administrator
xcacls Jerold /T /G Administrator:F

will set ownership and Full Control of Jerold and the child objects to the Administrator account.

You can then delete Jerold normally.

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