Cannot Rename or Delete Folders that have Subfolders

Sunnysky said:

you and Administrator are members of the group "Administrators" yet separate users.

Thanks.

So I guess I would need log in as Administrator.

I just now looked under Users; I see myself, Default, and Public; is this Default the Administrator of which they are meaning ?

The machine is Dell Optiplex 780 tower; I have no idea as to user-name, password, and what-have-you should I attempt to log in as Administrator.

Some temp files can't be deleted because they are in use. Skip them.
You should use Windows disk cleanup (%windir%\system32\cleanmgr.exe)

You may have the Administrator status as a user but System Administrator has much more power than a Administrator User.
To enable System administrator, open a CMD window as administrator and type:
net user administrator /active:yes (to enable)

net user administrator /active:no (to disable)

Log off.
Now you will have two options to log on, you and Administrator. As it is very powerful it can ruin your system if you do bad things. Use it with caution.

It is very important that you do a disk check after a power down. Once started, don't interrupt it.
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
chkdsk c: /f
It will say your disk is in use and ask if you want to schedule to next start = yes
Restart
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc

Megahertz07 said:

Some temp files can't be deleted because they are in use. Skip them.
You should use Windows disk cleanup (%windir%\system32\cleanmgr.exe)

Thanks; that is all very helpful; I will screenshot those instructions and save them where I can find them.

So, I can use this Windows disk cleanup instead of deleting the Temp stuff manually, right ?

Just from what I have already done, it seems like things are a bit quicker.

You can set disk cleanup to run once a month automatically.
How to automatically run Disk cleanup on Windows 7, 8.x and 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Megahertz07 said:

You can set disk cleanup to run once a month automatically.

Thanks for that.

So far so good on my problem; hopefully it doesn't return in a few days.

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UPDATE: Alas, I thought we had a winner; then I attempted to rename a folder and it refused, claiming it was open in another program which it was not.
I moved the subfolders out to a temporary folder, renamed the offending folder with no refusals now that it did not contain subfolders, and moved my subfolders back.

I then attempted to rename a few other folders containing subfolders and they refused me as well.

That has been the way of it; I can get a day, maybe two, after a restart, and then the problem will return.

I paid attention this time and I couldn't find any program that changed things when I opened it.

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UPDATE: I can move the folders that it will not allow me to rename; I don't think I could do that if anything were open in another program.

@BuckSkin, did you try to log in as built administrator (see post 13 on how to enable administrator) and see if you can rename them?

Megahertz07 said:

@BuckSkin, did you try to log in as built administrator (see post 13 on how to enable administrator) and see if you can rename them?

No, I have not; but, good idea and I will.

I have just recently restarted the machine and for a bit it will allow me to manipulate the affected folders (any folder that contains subfolders).

When it starts it's trick of refusing me again, then I will try the built administrator and see what happens.