Hi all,

I have 6 files which have appeared on my D: that I cant get rid of. I have tried deleting them as the admin but am told that I dont have permission to access the files. The file names look something like the following:

3782g84638c72h6788k78

I have scanned with my antivirus and they come up clean.

Any ideas on what they are and how I get rid of them?

Did you make that name up for an example, or is that an actual name? I ask, because "hexadecimal" (base16) numerals go from 0-9 then a-f. There is no "g".

Usually, these are temporary files and are safe to delete. Is D your boot drive? Are the timestamps current?

Assuming your account is an admin account, to delete you may have to boot into Safe Mode, or use a program like MoveOnBoot which allows you to tag files and folder for deletion early in the next boot, before any programs load and get hooks in them.

When I am unsure about a file or folder being safe to delete, what I do is rename the file or folder by appending the word delete and the date at the end of the file/folder name. Then I use the computer for a few days to make sure I did not break anything. If all okay, I know it safe to delete. If not okay, I can easily look at the file/folder name and restore the original name by removing what I added earlier.

What often happens is I forget all about it - then maybe months later, if I stumble on the renamed file I can look at the date I added and easily see if it is safe to delete.