SteveC

Thanks, Steve. It doesn't work though on Vista. I have done that and done that and it just refuses to budge. I reformatted and backed up; cannot figure out any other way to do it. I think this needs changing in WLOC to let Administrators have permissions to begin with. MS cannot protect consumers too much. If they are going to delete their backups accidentally, then let them. It is pretty frustrating for an experienced user like me to have to reformat a harddrive in order to delete directories!

Thanks anyway for trying. Steve

"StephenB" <sboots@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:dr0vj39htt55v8r334f08emr756ra9lhst@xxxxxx
"SteveC" <sconklan.nospam.yahoo.com> wrote:
Here's the FAQ posting from the OneCare forum:

There is no maintenance mode in Windows Live OneCare Backup. That means that
over time your backup destination may fill up and run out of room. You should
probably consider checking the backup destination periodically and take action
when the disk space on the destination drive is 50% full or more.
You can delete the OneCare backup set, but that leaves you unprotected in the
case of data loss until the next time you perform a new full backup with
OneCare.
In addition, deleting backups requires you to "take ownership" of the backup set
as it is protected by OneCare from deletion.

As of version 1.6, Windows Live OneCare backs up to a folder set as follows:

[Drive]:\Windows OneCare Backup\[PC Name]\[year]

Within the [PC Name] folder, there may be more than one year folder and within
the \Windows OneCare Backup folder there may be more than one PC Name folder,
depending on if this is a location used to backup for multiple computers or if
you have performed a new complete backup multiple times for the same computer,
perhaps after a OneCare reinstall.

When you decide that you need to delete and old backup set and start fresh, it
is recommended that you first open OneCare and start a new full backup. Let it
complete. Use the Restore function in OneCare to verify that you are able to
view the files and perhaps even restore a single file or folder. Then navigate
to the backup destination folder to delete the old backups.

The easiest way to perform this action in any version of Windows XP is to
navigate to the backup location, and right click on the folder set you wish to
remove, taking care to select the older backup set and not the one just made.
In the right click menu, select Sharing and Security.
When the Sharing and Security tab of the Properties dialog comes up, place a
check mark in the middle section - "Share this folder on the network."
Give the Share a name in the box for "Share Name".
And place a check mark in "allow network users to change files."
Click OK.

Now, you should be able to delete the folder and the files within.

Instant Support contains the following entries for deleting backup sets -
Delete a backup set folder from an external hard disk in Microsoft Windows XP
1. On the Start menu, click Run.
2. Type explorer.exe, and then press ENTER.
3. In My Computer, double-click the drive letter that corresponds to your
external hard disk.
4. Right-click the Windows Live OneCare folder, and then click Properties.
5. On the Security tab, under Groups or user names, click either
Administrators or your user name.
6. Next to Full Control, select the Allow check box, and then click Apply.
7. In the Windows Live OneCare folder, select the backup set folder, and
then press DELETE.
Note
The Security tab is available in Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition for
files that are on an NTFS partition. For more information, see article 308418 in
the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Delete a backup set folder from an external hard disk in Windows Vista
1. On the taskbar, click Start. In the Start Search box, type
explorer.exe, and then press ENTER.
2. Under Computer, double-click the disk letter that corresponds to your
external hard disk.
3. Right-click the Windows Live OneCare folder, and then click Properties.
4. On the Security tab, under Groups or user names, click either
Administrators or your user name.
5. Next to Full Control, select the Allow check box, and then click Apply.
6. In the Windows Live OneCare folder, select the backup set folder, and
then press DELETE.
If you are comfortable using the command line, open a Command Prompt window (in
XP, Start/All Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt) (In Vista, Start and type
"command" in the search box)

If you have a folder on the E: drive called Windows OneCare Backup and the
folder in it is called "computer" and the backup set you want to delete is
within the "computer" folder, then do this:
cacls "e:\Windows OneCare Backup\computer" /t /g administrators:F

So, the generic command line entry is -
cacls "<drive letter>:\<path>" /t /g administrators:F
where <drive letter> is where your backups are located, and <path> is the
complete folder path to the folder containing the backups you want to delete.

Do NOT put a \ after the path
This will strip the permissions from the folder and should allow you to delete
it.
Finally, you can certainly format the drive containing your backups. Doing so
will remove all files from the drive, but will allow you to begin using it once
again.

-steve


Pasted from
<http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1698096&SiteID=2>


--
Stephen Boots sboots@xxxxxx
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live
Windows Live OneCare Forum Moderator
http://forums.microsoft.com/windowso....aspx?siteid=2