Permission errors in PowerShell

Question

I am new to PowerShell. When trying to write a simple script that deletes the contents of a folder and then fills it with files copied from a different folder, I always get

Answer 1

Have you try :

remove-item D:\path_A\* -recurse -force

Answer 2

After this error (and assuming at that point in it the most recent error):

$error[0] | fl * -force

will expand the details of the error and exception. That should give you more information.

Another thing to do is to switch on verbose logging

$VerbosePreference = "Continue"

to get more details about specifically what operation is being performed when the error occurs.

Finally PowerShell ISE includes a debugger which allows you to step through your script.

Answer 3

Is UAC enabled? If so try running your PowerShell session as 'Administrator'. It really looks like you don't have permission to delete the objects.

We have very restrictive security policies where I work and users not familiar with UAC get burned all the time.

Answer 4

In addition to reasons mentioned in the above posts, i've observed that "Access Denied" error is thrown when the file is being accessed by a separate process (In my case, i had to stop the server before Rename-Item could be run successfully).