Re: Unable to delete folder

Hi, Chris.

Have you tried opening a "DOS" window and using some good ol' DOS commands?

In a "DOS" window, type any command name, followed by /?, to see a mini-Help file listing switches and parameters available with that command.

Navigate to the folder where your "Endtroducing..." file is. Then type: dir /x

This should produce a directory listing with one additional column. Before the Long File Names should be a column showing the SFN (Short File Name, also known as the 8.3 filename) for each file whose LFN does not qualify as an 8.3 filename. That should tell you the SFN for "Endtroducing..."

Then just use the Del command with the SFN: del endtro~1, for example - but the actual SFN might be something unexpected!

The multiple trailing periods "..." can be misleading. Even with LFNs, each file has only a single extension, although many appear to have multiple extensions. For example, if you load a simple text file, Sample.txt, into MS Word, then Save it, Word will normally add its own .doc extension, making the filename Sample.txt.doc. It appears that the filename now has two extensions. But ".txt" has now become a part of the filename - which can contain periods - and the only extension is ".doc". In your rogue file, the first two periods probably are part of the LFN. The last period indicates that an extension follows, but the extension appears to be null. But there might actually be some tricky hidden character(s) there that are keeping the normal Windows commands from deleting the file.

If del <SFN> doesn't work, then try isolating that file in a directory by itself. Either Move it into another folder or Move everything except this file out of this folder. When you have nothing but "Endtroducing..." in a folder, named "Parent", for example, then use rd to remove that folder. If rd alone doesn't work, try rd /s to remove the entire folder tree, including subfolders and files: rd parent /s

If you are still having problems, please post back telling us exactly what you tried and exactly what results you got. "I tried everything" doesn't help much, and neither does "It didn't work". But seeing your keystrokes and the exact error messages might help a lot.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP

"Chris" <Chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:4DCE5C92-BBAE-43C2-BE8C-D6CA6F47986F@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Hi all,
 this is quite an unusual problem, so hopefully might interest some of you
into helping me.

Using creative labs software (mediasource), to sync files from my jukebox
to my PC, a folder has been created on my hard-drive called "Endtroducing..."

Using all means that I can think of I cannot delete or rename this folder,
as the trailing ...'s make this folder unrecognisable by windows (as far as I
can see).

 I've tried solutions from microsofts knowledgebase already:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;120716

I've gotten onto Creative but their solution is to format my hard-drive!

If anyone has any suggestions, I would like to hear from you!

Please feel free to ask me whatever questions you need answered etc

Rgds,
Chris 

.

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