I have several folders on the C: drive that start with long alph-numeric strings with subfolders of SP1 and SP2. when trying to view the contents I get access denied. I am in administrator and have tried from safe mode or normal mode.

"Access Denied" Error Message When You Try to Delete a File http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;298345 -------------------- "Access is Denied" Error Message When You Try to Open a Folder(XP Pro) http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810881 -------------------- Also to say, you should get more RAM. XP uses all of, at least, 128 to run properly, and works better. It slows things down if you have programs starting and running in the background during Startup. Also when you open programs, things are slower if they have to take RAM away from XP. You should have enough RAM (above 128) for each program you run at the same time.

sorry....I am using administrator and this is XP home, so neither apply however I do agree that 128 mb is not enough. Thank You for the responce though

I'm getting a similar, maybe same, problem. It's on my Win2000 Advanced Server, running with 256mb RAM. It's sort of two individual problems: I've got the string of characters folder in the root, I assume created by a Windows Update operation. Now, it doesn't take up much space, so I ignored the problem. Now I'm in the process of updating files on the server, and it won't let me delete a folder with nearly 400mb on it, so I'm looking for a fix... Anyone got any ideas? The only thing that's come up so far is possibly MicroSoft already knows about the issue, and it's being investigated, meaning it's not a problem so they'll get around to it someday... http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=165126 Maybe this sheds some light on your situation, and maybe someone could email me with some tips on deleting things that pretend to be in use?