DigitalVolcano Software Support

It doesnt matter what I try to delete I get this error message: Delete Error: C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-wlansvc_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6002.22170_none_9e68a7441b62d132\gatherWirelessInfo.vbs : Access to the path is denied.

Even trying to delete files for programs that no longer exist will give me the same message with the files name. What am I doing wrong?

Probably because you don't have sufficient permission to delete that file.
Probably because that is a "somewhat" protected area in Windows.
Probably because you shouldn't be mucking around in that area at all, to begin with.

MUCH of what is in /Windows/ is comprise of (hard) links.
I don't have that particular file (though I may have a similarly named directory), though I suspect it is actually linked to a (not necessarily same named) file in C:\Windows\System32\en-US\.
Are you running a 32-bit version of Windows?


That said, perhaps, if you ran Duplicate Cleaner "as Administrator", that would grant you sufficient access to delete the file?

Out of 171198 duplicate files I am only on group 11959 and have only been able to delete 1 pdf file.

Yes it is the 32 bit version.

As for mucking around...I thought the point of the program was to delete duplicates? This particular file had quite a long list of duplicates.

I cant even delete files for games that are no longer installed or played on this computer.

I will try it as administrator

> I thought the point of the program was to delete duplicates?

It is.
But you need to be aware of just what you are looking to delete.
And generally /Windows/ or anything therein you usually don't want to mess with.

You will find "duplicates" of 'Explorer.exe'.
You say, well, I only need one, not two.
So I'll go ahead & delete the one from /Windows/winsxs/... as I already have /Windows/explorer.exe.
But in reality, they are one in the same. One is the other & the other is the one. By having "two", you are not taking up twice as much space, the two are only one, as they are hardlinks. It could just as well be 100 hardlinks of 'Explorer.exe' & it would occupy no more space then if there were only one.

Now if they were not hardlinks, if each file were its own entity, then in that case, you would be using 100x the space of one.

Duplicate Cleaner can enumerate hardlinks (Search Criteria | Regular Mode -> More Search Options, Count Hardlinks).
That will add a 'Hard Links' column to the Duplicate Files result list.
And files that show a hard link count > 0 are hard links.
Only files that show a count of 0 are their own separate entities.

Arbitrarily "removing duplicates" from within /Windows/ is going to be dangerous.

Specific circumstances, your game perhaps, could be different.

Just saying, do have a clear understanding, the consequences, of what you're doing before proceeding.

Thanks for the replies, I've decided to take the error message as a hint that I shouldn't be doing it. Better safe than sorry as the saying goes :)