Network_Services permission required

Sam Russell

I am trying to clean up a laptop disk. Running Win 7 Pro and have a load of files that are in folders - memory dumps and archive files.

When I try to delete them I get the message :-
'You require permission from NETWORK_SERVICE to make changes to this folder.

Now I have administrator status and can find no way of getting this permission. I have tried Google but nothing seems to work.

Any ideas?

gctest50

Grab all the installed drivers for the laptop ( esp. if it's a weird model )

http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm or similar

and re-install win7 ?


type this in at command prompt ( as admin )
to get product key

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

or use a keyfinder



https://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder




https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows7?


Wouldn't take long and you shouldn't have any weirdness down a few months down the line

DopeTech

While you are at it install Windows 10.

Sam Russell

Looks like my Win 7 product key is not acceptable for a reload.

I have managed to get rid of most (or at least some) of the files by going into the DOS command line and renaming the as 1, 2, 3 etc (to make life easier) and the del them and the RD the stub.

I have still only 7 gb free on a 40 gb drive. It is as slow as F.

I wonder if I might be better putting something like Ubuntu on it? Never tried it so do not know what it can do.

Johnboy1951

I would expect that if you feel 'forced' by circumstances to change to a Linux OS, then your experience will not be a good one.

Stating the obvious .... Linux is not Windows and behaves in different ways, and if you are resistant to change, or do not expect that and wish to learn the new ways, then it is likely to be a frustrating experience.

On the other hand if you do try Linux and are willing to learn the slightly different ways of doing the same things, then there is little that Linux cannot do that Windows can.

The most obvious for a lot of people is that they are used to using some particular applications and absolutely resist abandoning those Windows only apps for a Linux app with the same functions.

The great thing about considering this is that you can run any Linux distro as a bootable 'live' session to get a 'feel' for it and see if it would suit your needs.

Some to consider would be
Linux Mint
PCLinuxOS
Ubuntu
many others

To me it is akin to acquiring your first car (but without the cost) ....... there are a bewildering array of choices in the Linux world and some will suit you much better than others.
So you need to 'kick the tyres' and take a few test drives, to see what might suit you.

I still come back to the opinion that being 'forced' to change is not the ideal situation, and most times is doomed to failure.

Sam Russell

Well, the history is that this laptop was owned by a relative and bought originally from Oxfam about 5 years ago I think. It has not been upgraded in any way in the last five years and is a mess. The disk was full of files that had a weird (to me) protection that meant they could not be moved.

Now I have got rid of all personal files and apps and just want it to play with it.

It is an IBM Thinkpad T42 with a fairly dud battery. It has a 1.7 gig Pentium M processor and 1 gig of memory, and a 40 gig HDD (with 7 gig free with everything removed).

It is just a toy at this stage, but I would quite like it to use for web surfing, and perhaps email.

It would perhaps allow me to learn Linux - if so, which would be the easiest o learn and install? I would want a web browser and an office type programme, and be able to print to my HP printer.

Johnboy1951

The majority of Linux distros are, essentially, the same under the 'hood' (below what you visibly see - Desktop Environment.

Some DE's require more resources than others, and those tend to be the more 'Windows-like' for the new user.

With the specs you gave I would tend towards a DE that is lighter on resources, so I would suggest looking at Xfce DE and LXDE because they are the more lightweight choices.
LXDE is the more lightweight but Xfce is a bit more feature rich.

For instance you can d/load either of those from PCLinuxOS here
http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/community/
(It also has a TDE version there which is Trinity DE (a re-vamp of the old KDE 3.5 DE version - which I find somewhat outdated looking).

Even if they do not suit your needs you should try them so you can compare the experience with maybe Lubuntu or other distro versions.

To confuse matters even more, distros put their own 'paint & powder' on the GUI so LXDE from one might initially appear completely different to another LXDE release.
The user generally has the power to change most such parameters if they wish.

As for your stated usage ...... browsing, office work, email and printing ..... there should be no problem with any of those, or indeed any of the usual uses of most people.

When you install and select to use the whole HDD, the existing files etc will not be available, so be sure you have recovered everything of use before installing.

On the premise that the laptop can boot from USB stick, I would suggest that as the preferred method rather than using optical media which would be very slow.

You can practice installing each of the ISOs you download ..... one over another, wiping the previous one ..... and so become very familiar with how different distros do things.

Quite often the best place for some 'New-User' help is the forum for the distro.

Give yourself time to experiment and you should find it an interesting journey.

Sam Russell

Thanks for that advice.

I will see how far I get.

ressem

Might be late for your purposes...
The protection you describe is that the files are in use by a windows service.
Windows Update on a bad loop, loggers and debuggers, antivirus, backup service, programs that cache internet files, lots of stuff that runs in the background.


You can identify the process by downloading the "handle.exe" tool from Microsoft Sysinternals
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/handle

Start the command line. (cmd.exe),
Using the cd command
browse to the download location and run
handle.exe -u > %TEMP%\myopenfiles.txt
notepad %TEMP%\myopenfiles.txt

In the resulting notepad window, you can search for the file you're looking to delete and you'll get more detailed info on the process name and ID that is blocking you.

Whether deleting the file is a good idea, depends on what it is and it's associated service is.

e.g a sample

---

postgres.exe pid: 5484 NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

10C: File (R-D) C:\Windows\System32\en-US\KernelBase.dll.mui

114: File (RW-) C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\10\data

138: Section \BaseNamedObjects\Global/PostgreSQL:C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/10/data

4E0: Section \BaseNamedObjects\Global/PostgreSQL.1856495536

13F4: File (R-D) C:\Windows\System32\en-US\mswsock.dll.mui

---

conhost.exe pid: 5492 NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

40: File (RW-) C:\Windows

1DC: File (R-D) C:\Windows\System32\en-GBã2.dll.mui

1E0: File (R-D) C:\Windows\System32\en-US\ConhostV2.dll.mui

200: Section \BaseNamedObjects\__ComCatalogCache__

204: File (R--) C:\Windows\Registration\R00000000000d.clb

---

postgres.exe pid: 5632 NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE

44: File (RW-) C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\10\data

F4: File (R-D) C:\Windows\System32\en-US\KernelBase.dll.mui

108: File (R-D) C:\Windows\System32\en-US\mswsock.dll.mui

1488: File (RWD) C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\10\data\log\postgresql-2018-06-02_094648.log

---

Sam Russell

@ressem

Thanks for that. It explains where they came from. I deleted them all by brute force by going into the dos and changing the directory name fro 45635645.tmp to 1 and then deleting the directory and removing the directory.

Now I have no interest at all in the data or OS and would do a clean install if I could.

However, the laptop is as slow as f so I think I will install Linux and see how I get on.

ressem

It'd probably run XP well.

It's a well built 13-14 year old laptop, so will struggle with any OS on fancy websites in a standard browser which assumes that 2GB of RAM will always be available (the old laptop will forever be swapping memory pages in and out of disk), and I would be wary of the hard drive giving up the ghost.

The Pentium M was a 32 bit CPU so won't use the _x64 bit linux versions.

There are programs like
https://unetbootin.github.io/
that run from windows that can quickly create a USB using a downloaded image.

Some linux versions/distros like Lubuntu live can be trialled, or run permanently in live mode from a usb key which might (or not) respond better than an install to a worn down hard drive.

Have fun. A visit to the charity store will probably get a computer 6 years younger if the waiting starts to grate on your Zen sense of calm.

Sam Russell

ressem wrote: »

Have fun. A visit to the charity store will probably get a computer 6 years younger if the waiting starts to grate on your Zen sense of calm.

That is where this one came from six years ago.

Johnboy1951

The Pentium M was a 32 bit CPU so won't use the _x64 bit linux versions.

Dang! Missed that!

That makes searching out a suitable release a little more difficult because a lot of distros no longer release or support 32 bit operating systems.

ressem

The unetbootin program has a built-in pick list of the more common ones
like Damn Small Linux, arch, fedora 25 live 32 bit, Lubuntu and xubuntu 32 bit daily live and other ligtweight versions that most of us will never try again.

Or other strange rare creatures like freebsd , kaspersky rescue disk, 3cx SIP phone system, freenas, clonezilla, debian,

Sam Russell

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Dang! Missed that!

That makes searching out a suitable release a little more difficult because a lot of distros no longer release or support 32 bit operating systems.

I think this laptop is going somewhere else as I think any distro worth trying will expect 64 bit and more memory and horsepower than this has.

Johnboy1951

Sam Russell wrote: »

I think this laptop is going somewhere else as I think any distro worth trying will expect 64 bit and more memory and horsepower than this has.

You can certainly test - from live media - without interfering with its own operating system.

There are some very light releases out there .... various versions of Puppy & Tiny Linux come to mind immediately.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=tinycore
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=Puppy

It can be a fun journey but I suppose it would be less frustrating if you were not so limited in your choice due to hardware limitations.
On the other hand, if you do experience the 'limited' option first, you might well appreciate how much can be done with so little