I was working on a computer with Vista installed. And, as the administrator, I needed to remove one of the drivers located at C:\windows\system32\drivers. No big deal, I’ll just move the files I need to the desktop and reboot. WRONG!

All system-based files are controlled by a TrustedInstall user. Even my administrator account had nothing on this guy. Good thing I know some command line options.

Open up the command line with administrator rights (if you’re not on a domain I believe you can Click start, type in “cmd” and then hit Control + Shift + Enter.
takeown /f C:\windows\system32\drivers\nameoffile
You should then see a “SUCCESS: The file (or folder): …” which is a good thing.

Now you can right click on the file, go to properties, and then add your user to the security tab list. You might want to give your user the proper privs as well. Then you can move/delete/rename to your heart’s content.