batch erroring with renaming - Permission denied

[incognit0 at mixnym.net]

  I am executing a --batch file and am getting the below error messages.

Contents of bat file:
C:\gnupg\gpg.exe --batch --homedir c:\gnupg\ --yes --no-default-keyring --keyring c:\gnupg\pubring.gpg --delete-key "the-key-name" 

Error messages:
gpg: renaming `c:\gnupg\pubring.gpg' to `c:\gnupg\pubring.bak' failed: Permission denied
gpg: deleting keyblock failed: file rename error
gpg: the-key-name: delete key failed: file rename error

How do I give gpg the permission to rename the pubring.gpg to pubring.bak?  It is not write protected.