Re: BUG #4797: Uninstall : impossible to delete some files (base...)

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 2:17 PM, eric.saudraix <eric(dot)saudraix(at)laposte(dot)net> wrote:
>
> Thanks for your quick reply.
>
>
>
> I know I have to be the administrator of my data. Indeed, I am the
> administrator of my computer.
>
> On Linux it would not be a problem to find the key that leads to the
> problem.
>
>
>
> In fact to explain what's wrong : a database was created - or attempted to
> be created - with PostGreSQL. When I uninstall PostGreSql I didn't know I
> had to delete my database before I can uninstall this software. Now the

You don't have to delete the database before uninstalling - in fact,
many users rely on the fact that you don't.

> problem is Windows Vista thinks files of my database were created by an
> other user, who does not exist anymore. It is due to some security
> restrictions of NTFS. Consequently I can not delete the files. What can I do

The uninstallation process doesn't delete the user account that should
own the files - it has no way of knowing if you're using the account
for other installations.

To remove the old data directory, just take ownership of it and then
you can do whatever you like with it. There's a howto document here:
http://www.vista4beginners.com/Change-permissions-take-ownership (I'm
not that familiar with Vista, so don't know the specifics on that
platform).

> ? On Linux it is quite difficult to find the "user key", but on Vista I don
> not know what to do.

I don't know what you mean by 'user key'. There's a fundamental
difference between Linux and Windows though - on Linux, the root user
can do *anything*. On Windows, that is not the case for
administrators. File permissions can still keep them out of files,
requiring additional steps such as taking ownership to access them.

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com