can't erase unused disc space

T

tonyready

New Member
I am and have always have been the user with admisitrator rights on my laptop running Vista. When I try to erase unused disc space I get the log message
Error The program does not have the required permissions to erase the unused space on disk. Run the program as an administrator and retry the operation.
Even if I exit eraser from the system tray and restart I still get the same message. Does anyone know how to solve this problem?
 
Use the link in my signature to go to the FAQ, and read the post entitled 'Getting to know Eraser 6', where you will find a section on running Eraser as Administrator. It's easy, but it's not obvious; you actually did half the job and then got the other half wrong ... :)

Win 7 and Vista (unlike XP) do not have a universal administrative mode; users with administrative rights still have to invoke them each time a program requiring them is run. This is a real pain with utilities such as Eraser which need to be run sometimes with admin. rights and sometimes in normal user mode. Future versions of Eraser will hopefully make things easier, but the simple days of XP (were they :?: ) are gone forever.

David
 
Just because you a logged on as an Admin user doesn't mean you are running Eraser that way. Try this: exit eraser. Then go to the Eraser icon on the desktop (assuming you have one) and right click it. Select "Run as Administrator" in the options menu. When you start Eraser in this way your will be running in full Admin.

If you don't have an icon on the desktop you can do the same thing by selecting the start "icon" from inside the Eraser folder.

Let us know if this solves your problem.
 
palancar said:
Hey David our posts overlapped my friend. I guess great minds think alike. LOL!!
Click to expand...
Two good answers are a lot better than none! You gave him the specifics of the answer, but I still think he would find it useful to read the 'sticky' FAQ posts, particularly the one I referred to.

David
 
First off I am using Win 7 64bit on a P.C. joined to an AD domain.
I am logged in as a regular/limited user I also have a domain admin user account.

The “Run as administrator” option doesn’t change the result. (doesn’t allow me to erase unused disk space)

Using the “Run as different user…” option from the icon in the start menu all programs, and supplying my domain admin ID and password results in the error message “Error launching application: The parameter is incorrect.”

If I go C:\Program files\Eraser and run eraser.exe using my domain admin account after about a 30-second delay eraser launches and I am then able to set up a new task to erase unused disk space.

Is there a way to automate this so I don't have to go to the install location and launch Eraser as my domain admin user every time I reboot?
 
It would be nice if you could provide screenshots of each error and message showing what you're seeing. That would really help.

Although I do use a AD network, mine happens to a domain admin so I do get UAC prompts but have not needed to use runas.
 
I guess what I was really trying to find out is, if there is a way to automatically run eraser with alternate admin/domain admin privileges at login for limited users, or even without anyone logged in?
 
Dark*matter said:
I guess what I was really trying to find out is, if there is a way to automatically run eraser with alternate admin/domain admin privileges at login for limited users, or even without anyone logged in?
Click to expand...
It ought to be possible to provide a login script using the Eraser CLI (to see what is available, enter 'Eraser Help' at a command prompt). If the erasures are such that administrative privileges are required, Eraser does of course have to be run from an account with such privileges.

As regards your problem with running Eraser as Administrator, it is necessary to stop the pre-existing running process (which normally does not run elevated) before elevated running is attempted. For this reason among others, I do not allow Eraser to run on startup, but only when I invoke it. This prevents me from scheduling tasks, of course, but I rarely use that capability in any case.

David
 
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