Access denied when taking ownership of a file

Hi,

I recently downloaded an application file (.exe), and tried to delete it, but i keep getting the error "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item".

I tried changing the ownership of the file > right click > properties > security > owner >edit >selected my user account (administrator) > and clicked ok. All i got was an "access is denied error".

I even tried going to cmd and using the takeown and icacls functions, but am still getting the access is denied error.

Any advice on how to take ownership of this file is greatly appreciated.

You seem to have used all the heavy guns available in our arsenal. How about setting back to a restore point from before you downloaded the program?

there are two programs i can think of
1 - unlocker, i don't have a link for it, but it should be easy to find it.
2 - winbubbles, it gives you the right click option in the menu to delete afterwards.
the first one, never had a problem with it.

Remove the system and hidden file attribute first. Use an elevated command prompt.

attrib -s -h C:\and the full path of the file, if your drive is not C:\ substitute correct letter

Now try to take ownership

.

Old thread I know - but maybe someone else stumbles upon this as I did.

Mombodog mentioned above using elevated status - this worked for me, but without having to go to the command line. I started Explorer with the right-click "Run as Administrator" option and then was able to take ownership as per OP's post.

In my case it was also a downloaded file, but a bit torrent using BitLord which I'm still not completely au fait with and I may have used an option in BL that unloaded the file without releasing it properly first. Who knows, but I wasn't about to try re-getting a 5.1 GB file that had taken over a week to download in the first place!!