Can't delete a folder on Windows 7 with a trailing space [closed]
According to You cannot delete a file or a folder on an NTFS file system volume (requires JavaScript to display), the following should work (notice it uses a UNC path).
rd "\\?\C:\holds bad subdir\20120530-04 "
Be sure to do this with cmd.exe. It does not seem to work with PowerShell's Remove-Item (rd).
Also see:
I've got a few suggestions.
Method 1:The default Path
parameter in cmdlets are known to have problems with special characters. LiteralPath
however should support all characters and often solves problems like the one you have.
Get-ChildItem 2012* | % { Remove-Item -LiteralPath $_.FullName -Force }
Method 2:You can try to use the shortname (8.3 filename) for the folder. This is a cmd.exe
approach. You could also wrap the two commands inside cmd /c " YOUR COMMAND "
to run them in PowerShell.
D:\> dir /x Volume in drive D is Storage Volume Serial Number is ******* Directory of D:\12.01.2014 12:29 <DIR> APPLEI~1 Apple iOS 7 GMD:\> rd /s d:\APPLEI~1 d:\applei~1, Are you sure (Y/N)? y
Method 3:You could also see if a WMI approach works:
#Remember to use \\ instead of \ in the path$fold = Get-WmiObject -Query "select * from Win32_Directory where Name = 'C:\\holds bad subdir\\20120530-04'"$fold
If this returns nothing, try adding a space at the end in the filename. If it returns an object, run:
$fold.Delete()
If it doens't return an object both with and without the space at the end, try the following apporach using wildcard (this can take everything from 1-15 minutes to run).
#Remember to use \\ instead of \ in the path$fold = Get-WmiObject -Query "select * from Win32_Directory where Name like 'C:\\holds bad subdir\\20120530-04%'"$fold
And delete it if it returns the correct folder:
$fold.Delete()
Have you tried
rd "C:\holds bad subdir\20120530-04 "
or
rd /s "C:\holds bad subdir"
You say you've tried del
which deleted files, but you haven't mentioned rd
or its synonym rmdir
wich removes directories.