Unable to delete a file

Question

I have a program that I can't uninstall. I get the following error:

There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.

The program seems to be completely romoved from Program Files except for 2 files, Which is a LaTeX log file:

QuoteTemplate.log
QuoteTemplate.synctex.gz(busy)

When I try to manually delete these files I get:

You need permission to perform this action

I click "Try Again" multiple times and it never succeeds.

When I run command prompt as administrator and try:

del C:\Program Files (x86)\dir\QuoteTemplate.log

It says Access is Denied. If I try:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\dir

It says Access is Denied.

I thought that a corrupted program had a lock on the file, so I restarted the computer, then did all of the above again, with the same results.

Update: starting in safe mode and doing the same had the same effect.

Update: I was able to change the content of the files, I just couldn't delete them. I believe it to be because of the access permissions on dir. I was able to unlock dir using unlocker from the accepted answer. It seemed that windows explorer somehow had a lock on the file, which is why restarting didn't fix the problem. I could be wrong though.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Use TAKEOWN /F filename /A to define the Administrator group as owner of the file. Then try again deleting the file as Administrator.

Another option would be to repair the access rights of the file using ICACLS.

Answer 2

A simple tool, called unlocker can do the job easily, it disables all the 'you cannot delete ...' restrictions

Answer 3

Execute the uninstaller EXPLICITLY as Administrator (not just simply running the program on an account that has adminitrator privs). Otherwise you get this type of error. I have had this happen on installs several times, and running the program as Administrator fixes the problems.