how can i delete .svn directories and “entries” files on an old subversion source codebase

Question

i have a windows xp machine and i am trying to delete a directory with some old source code that was once hooked up to subversion but the repository is no longer there.

when i try to delete the directory i get this error:

i see that the directory is read only but when i try to remove the read only flag, it pops up this screen:

but then fails with the following error:

i have tried using unlocker and a few other tools but nothing will allow me to delete this directory.

i do have admin rights on the machine. Is there any recommendation for something that can brute force delete a directory even given the above issues. I am not sure if this is subversion not allowing the deletion or its something in windows xp directly.

Update

It seems now that i can delete individual files in a directory but can't delete any directories or any bulk directory sub directory delete.

as mentioned, unlocker does pop up but says that no other process has no handle locking the files

also, i disabled Simple file sharing and took ownership of the folders (i was not originally) and then tried the steps above but still getting the same access denied errors.

Answer 1

You could try taking ownership of the folder following these steps. It appears it may have something to do with permissions/security since Unlocker is not recognizing any locks on the files/folders.

Answer 2

This likely means that the file is locked by some other process.

One way to find this out is to use Process Explorer, and use the Find Handle Or DLL function to find out which process has a lock on the entries file. I'm sure there are other utilities that will perform the same functionality.

Once you know what process has locked the file, close that process (or cause it to relinquish the lock) and try again.

As a total guess, I would suggest that if you're using Tortoise SVN, the TSNVCache.exe process is the one locking the file.