Problem Deleting Files With Long Names

[PT]

I used Windows Media Player 11 to rip audio CD's. On a few, the resulting
file names are very large, since WMP concatenates the track name, the album
name, and various other items which sometimes results in a very long file
name.

When I try right click or left click such files either to delete or to
rename such files, WinXP Home hangs, forcing me to use the Windows Task
Manager to end the hang-up.

The same thing happens if I try to delete the entire folder, although I
occasionally first get a message to the effect that there are contained file
names too large for the recycle bin.

How can I delete or edit these files?


PT

 

[Olórin]

I used Windows Media Player 11 to rip audio CD's. On a few, the resulting
file names are very large, since WMP concatenates the track name, the album
name, and various other items which sometimes results in a very long file
name.

When I try right click or left click such files either to delete or to
rename such files, WinXP Home hangs, forcing me to use the Windows Task
Manager to end the hang-up.

The same thing happens if I try to delete the entire folder, although I
occasionally first get a message to the effect that there are contained
file names too large for the recycle bin.

How can I delete or edit these files?


PT

Try a Shift-Delete to bypass the Recycle Bin. Failing that, give this a try:
http://www.purgeie.com/delinv/

Not sure about renaming, though, short of deleting per the above then
re-ripping the tracks via a different route.

 

[SC Tom]

I used Windows Media Player 11 to rip audio CD's. On a few, the resulting
file names are very large, since WMP concatenates the track name, the album
name, and various other items which sometimes results in a very long file
name.

When I try right click or left click such files either to delete or to
rename such files, WinXP Home hangs, forcing me to use the Windows Task
Manager to end the hang-up.

The same thing happens if I try to delete the entire folder, although I
occasionally first get a message to the effect that there are contained
file names too large for the recycle bin.

How can I delete or edit these files?


PT

When you're ripping from CD, click on Rip, More Options, File Names. That
way you can select what info you want in the song name. Since I save my
songs as <artist>\<album name>, all I have selected is Song Name (but that's
just me).

If you highlight the songs or folder that you're now trying to delete, press
Shift, Delete and see if that works.

SC Tom

 

[Bob Lucas]

When you're ripping from CD, click on Rip, More Options, File
Names. That way you can select what info you want in the song
name. Since I save my songs as <artist>\<album name>, all I
have selected is Song Name (but that's just me).

If you highlight the songs or folder that you're now trying to
delete, press Shift, Delete and see if that works.

SC Tom

Hopefully, that will work. If not, you could try using the
command prompt and the DEL command.

Firstly, make a note of the complete path and the file name.
Then, click on Start, followed by Run. Type cmd and click OK.

Use the cd command to navigate to the folder that contains the
file. To check the file is present, type DIR followed by a
space, followed by the first few characters of the file name
followed by the wildcard symbol *.

Once you have confirmed the location of the file, type DEL
followed by a space, followed by the complete file name.

 

[ju.c]

Why don't you just rename them with a smaller name?

Anyway...

These are the best apps for file deletion, all free.

Unlocker 1.8.7 237 KB
Info: http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
Download: http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/unlocker1.8.7.exe

KillBox 90 KB
Info: http://www.killbox.net/
Download: http://www.killbox.net/downloads/KillBox.exe

FileASSASSIN 1.06 163 KB
Info: http://www.malwarebytes.org/fileassassin.php
Download: http://www.malwarebytes.org/fa-setup.exe

DelinvFile - Delete Invalid Files and Folders
Info: http://www.purgeie.com/delinv/index.htm
Download: http://www.purgeie.com/dl/divfinst.exe


ju.c

 

[John John (MVP)]

The easiest would probably be to use Media Player to delete the files.
The application that created the files can usually deal with the long
path names that it creates.

John