name said:
Hello.
Does anyone know of any utility that will reliably delete files or
folders under windows XP pro?
Often windows refuses to remove a folder when it contains unusual
characters and this is extremely annoying. So I'm looking for some kind
of utility to use in such a situation.
kind regards, thanks for any suggestions, Niek
Probably the easiest way is to use DOS (ignore sycophants chanting "there is
no DOS" mantra)
find Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt
OR
Run... CMD.EXE
which will show the infamous DOS "Black screen" (I use it often enough to
place it on my desktop)
type
DIR /X filename
where filename may be a foldername if you like. If your file/foldername
contains spaces or strange characters, you may need to wrap the
file/foldername in double-quotes. You may also need to use ? or *
(match-any-single-character or match-any-character-sequence) if you can't
type the actual character you need.
You'll find that DIR/X will show the short file/dirname, and you should be
able to delete that element by typing
DEL shortfilename (for files) or
RD /s shortdirname (for directories)
You won't be able to delete any files or directories that are currently OPEN
to any active application. You may also need to remove the Read-only, Hidden
or System flags from files before you can delete them. This is easily
accomplished with
ATTRIB -r -h -s filename
where filename may be quoted if required, and may be preceded by a pathname
if required.
Finally, type
EXIT
to close the CMD.EXE program.
HTH
....Bill
