Deleting Folders & Files

[Bob S]

Is there a way to delete a folder and all of its contents
without having pop-ups asking whether I want to delete
read-only or executable files? More times than I can count
I've started the deletion of a large folder, walked away to
do something else, and when I come back hardly anything has
been deleted because there's a pop-up question to be
answered. I'd like to delete without any questions.

Thanks.

 

[Lem]

Is there a way to delete a folder and all of its contents
without having pop-ups asking whether I want to delete
read-only or executable files? More times than I can count
I've started the deletion of a large folder, walked away to
do something else, and when I come back hardly anything has
been deleted because there's a pop-up question to be
answered. I'd like to delete without any questions.

Thanks.

Try right-clicking on recycle bin, select "Properties" and on the
"Global" tab, UNcheck the box to "Display delete confirmation dialog."
Delete will still stop, however, if a file is in use (or if Windows
thinks it is in use).

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

 

[Bob S]

Try right-clicking on recycle bin, select "Properties" and on the
"Global" tab, UNcheck the box to "Display delete confirmation dialog."
Delete will still stop, however, if a file is in use (or if Windows
thinks it is in use).

Thanks very much, Lem.

 

[Bob S]

Try right-clicking on recycle bin, select "Properties" and on the
"Global" tab, UNcheck the box to "Display delete confirmation dialog."
Delete will still stop, however, if a file is in use (or if Windows
thinks it is in use).

I'm back again.

Although I made the change, it turns out that it doesn't
work. The message still pops up for read-only files. I
assume it would do so for executables as well, but I haven't
deleted any such folders lately.

Is there anything I need to do in addition to unchecking
that box?

I have WinXP SP3, with all updates, by the way.

Thanks.

 

[ju.c]

Use the command prompt:

del /?

Deletes one or more files.

DEL [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names
ERASE [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names

names Specifies a list of one or more files or directories.
Wildcards may be used to delete multiple files. If a
directory is specified, all files within the directory
will be deleted.

/P Prompts for confirmation before deleting each file.
/F Force deleting of read-only files.
/S Delete specified files from all subdirectories.
/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to delete on global wildcard
/A Selects files to delete based on attributes


ju.c


The display semantics of the /S switch are reversed in that it shows
you only the files that are deleted, not the ones it could not find.

 

[Bob S]

Use the command prompt:

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the command
prompt, except that it exists and that people use it. The
Windows help file says very little about it, and what it
does say assumes I already know how to use it.

But thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the command
prompt, except that it exists and that people use it. The
Windows help file says very little about it, and what it
does say assumes I already know how to use it.

But thanks for the suggestion.

When you have some spare time, try entering command mode
(double-click on the icon which I expect was put on your
desktop by default, or Start/All Programs and then navigate
through the programs tree until you find it). You can then do
the following without any risk: type "help" and press Enter
(there, you just executed a command) -- you will see a list
of all the commands; pick a command that looks as though
you might use it one day, type "help [commandname]" and
press Enter -- you will see an explanation of how to use
that command; repeat for various commands, remember
what you see or make notes; when you're through, type "exit"
and press Enter.

That's what command mode is, executing one command
at a time. The interface is dirt-simple, a black background
on which you type commands and have them executed --
once, before Windows, that was _the_ interface we used.
Those of us without photographic memories all kept a paper
manual of the command language handy. Have fun. Be
careful, though, some commands have consequences of
import, such as erasing large numbers of files or running
programs that do drastic things.

 

[Bob S]

[snip]

I'm giving it a try right now.

Thanks.

 

[Bob S]

[snip]

I also found useful instructions here:

http://commandwindows.com/command1.htm

Thanks again.