I can't delete a folder... WHY?


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There's a folder that I downloaded from a FTP site that do not want no die no matter what I do.

WinXP says: "Cannot delete file: Cannot read from the source file or disk".

And...

"Cannot find the specified file. Make sure you specify the correct path and file name".

But the folder is there, physically evident, 0 bytes, not "read-only", nor hidden.

Is this a virus?

Please, help.

THANKS in advance.

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try to log out and log back in again and see if you can delete it. Try the command prompt and see if you can delete if from there. What is the path of the directory?

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I came here because I already tried everything: restart, shut-off and on, safe mode... And the folder is still there. Its name is ".grace;;;;" (without the " 's).

Its a weird mistery. First time in my experience with PCs.

Think that probably I can get rid of it with the command prompt in WinXP, but I don't know the command to delete.

Help!

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When you find it in a command window is the name the same? Because as far as I'm aware you shouldn't be able to have a folder name starting with a period.

To delete from command windows is del .grace;;;;

It may be that there is a character before the period.

Try this in a command window, del .grace;;;;

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No idea why it happens but I had the same prob with an .AVI here at work. Only solution was to boot into safemode and then delete it. The weirdest is, there was no error on normal boot up about it being missed. Coz if Windows boots up and it's locked then, I'd assume some tool loaded on startup would access it and throw an error if it's missing. But there was none.

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It's a Microsoft Undocumented feature, I couldn't get rid of mine until I did a OS reinstall (win2k). When I scandisked as start up it fixed brken file links, but i still couldn't delete a similar special file :o

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The error you describe is possibly one of two problems: Either the file is not accessible/viewable to the network or you don't have the right to the file/link/shortcut/mapping to delete it. Unfortunately, Windows 2K/XP give the same error descriptions for both problems.

Perhaps the bigger question is "Why on earth would any different rights be assigned to any file/link/resource if you are the only one using the PC?"

Or, are multiple people using the PC or do you have more than 1 profile on the PC or did you reinstall the OS?

If you can't delete a file/FTP folder/shortcut/link/mapping from Network Connections, you don't have the correct rights to the folder (link) on your PC. If you type in %userprofile%Nethood (and press ENTER), you should see some eternal 'links' to shares that can be accessed by your PC. On your %userprofile%Nethood directory, right click and look at Properties --> Security and ensure you have full rights (Full Control) to [delete] files from your directory.

All the Nethood files are desktop.ini files, which the system sees as SYSTEM files.

Otherwise for a file, right click on the file/link you want to delete. Select Properties. Go to the Security tab. Ensure your userprofile has the the full right for Full Control of the file. If the boxes are all checked, you are OK, even if they are grayed in with checks. If they are grayed in, but you don't have Full Control, you can't delete the file without changing your associated rights.

If after 'deleting' you still see the file, when in the Windows Explorer (Not Internet Explorer), press F5, refresh. When you delete, hold the SHIFT key down, to prevent the file from being retained in the Recycle Bin.

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Don't use any of the following characters when creating a file name or link!

& (ampersand)

" OR ' (quotation marks)

; , (semicolon or comma)

^ (shift 6 - caret)

&& (double ampersand)

|| (double pipe)

These are all reserved for conditional processing symbols to issue multiple commands from the same command prompt.

Windows should not let you use certain characters when creating/saving a file/link. For example, if you use either or / in a filename/linkname, there should be a pop-up window saying the name is incorrect.

Periods are ok in filenames as are many other characters. Just be careful when using other characters, some have other meanings in the CMD prompt or search windows (which makes searches more difficult because you need to search for a system reserved character and exclude the wildcard as part of the search definition)!

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when that usually happens to me it just means that the file is already deleted but its still showing up

that happened to me a lot in windows xp

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The example: Rhythm'n'Chords

is ok. You should have no problems with it.

Actually, the single quote is always ok, my error.

But additionally, ? * should never be used.

The ; and , are used to separate command parameters in the CMD or command line boxes. You can use ; and , in naming files, but they cannot be in certain sequences and additionally the CMD line interpreter may interpret them as separating different commands even though it probably shouldn't.

From the MS website, NTFS naming conventions should always exclude the following:

? " / < > * | :

Although you can use the following list in naming files, you run the risk of confusing the CMD line functions when you try commands from the prompt where files have the following characters.

& (ampersand)

" (quotation marks)

; , (semicolon or comma)

^ (shift 6 - escape sequence)

&& (double ampersand)

|| (double pipe)

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