uninstalling microsoft office..

Maybe not the best idea to advertise that you are pirating software especially M$. That's like parking in a handicap spot and turning on your flashers.

But, it's possible that there will be a way to delete the files via the terminal. I'm not sure if that's the exact problem you are having. If you post the exact text of the error message you are getting, you'll be able to get a better response here. (I am assuming that you have admin access on the machine.)

 

Like stoid said, you can remove every file from your HD, assuming you are an "admin" user.
If you are an "admin" user, you can give yourself temporary "root" rights, making the whole filesystem accessible to you.
In the terminal type:
sudo rm -rf <dir/file.ext>
followed by your admin password.

Mind you there will be no prompt asking if you are sure..... be carefull.
Good luck.

 

Since you're a recent switcher, to make it simpler, in the terminal, type

Code:

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

which will just empty everything in your trash.

 

MS office never goes away. As soon as you look on your friends computer - there it is. Sort of like a virus...

I will use OpenOffice.org 1.1 for the time being.
It's better. It's free. Let's make it the new standard.
Did I mention it's free?

 

If you don't want to use Terminal (although, I suggest getting to know it a little better . . . I switched two months ago and have found it useful) you can reboot and then try to empty the trash can. This has worked for me when OSX initially says the files I want to delete are currently in use.

 

You can't delete those files because they are running.

Go to terminal and su to root.

Do a 'ps -auxw' and look for those files running. You could also do a 'ps -auxw | grep Database' to search for the database daemon. Once found look at the number on the far left; that's the process id.

Do a 'kill -9 <process id>' and that will kill the process. Do that for each of the files, then empty your trash.

By the way, when I installed it, even though I would remove the Database Daemon from my login items, it would reappear. Hopefully this doesn't happen to you.

 

Um, the best way to fix this problem is to do this. Trash the files. Logout. Log back in. Delete them normally via the Finder.

If that doesn't work, then do a full restart, relogin, and then empty the trash. If they're in the Trash, the programs won't start.

NOTE: This is at least as far as I know -- try starting up an application in the trash and it will give you a dialog preventing you from doing it; that doesn't prevent something from invoking in from the command line, though.

In any case, try the above mentioned method. There's no need to go into the Terminal for silly little stuff like this (at least I don't think so).