Have you run into this little Windows 7 Explorer bugaboo yet? When you try to delete a 0kb file you get an error window pop up that says "Could Not Find This Item". I had 3 of these little gems hanging around my downloads folder, all of them without extensions, and I couldn't get rid of them...Delete didn't work, F5 to Refresh didn't work, trying to move them to a new folder didn't work, and DEL from the command prompt didn't work. I thought about booting into SAFE MODE, but I found the correct solution first:
1. Shift+Right Click on the directory where the offending file resides, and choose "Open command window here" from the menu.
2. Type command DIR /X (this command will generate a listing slightly different than just DIR, in that you will not only see the "Windows" filenames, but the 8-letter DOS filenames as well, which is the one you want). In the example, file V.A. cannot be deleted, but the DIR /X command gives me the DOS filename as well:
[example] 11/10/2010 11:45 AM 0 VA2E96~1 V.A.
3. Type the DEL command, using the DOS filename from the listing: DEL [DOS-filename] (so I typed DEL VA2E96~1)
...simple as that
... simple as that ...
ReplyDeleteif it would work.
Try " Long Path Tool " useful in situations where you see these error messages: Cannot read from source file or disk, there has been a sharing violation, cannot delete file or folder, the file name you specified is not valid or too long, the source or destination file may be in use
ReplyDeleteand many other file managing errors that you encounter in your computing use.
Thanks, it worked just fine
ReplyDeleteCorrsFan,
ReplyDeleteYou saved my evening!!! Thanks!
I read through and tried few other things all over web before I found this, only solution out there that worked for me -- THANKS!
ReplyDeleteGlad I found this website, saved a LOT of my time. A big thanks.
ReplyDeleteOmg!!!! such an easy solution and I tried searching for this for almost couple of weeks now. It worked like magic. I still dont believe and rechecking if the file has reappeared ;)
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, use cygwin (utility that treats Windows like unix) to delete the file/folder or rename it. Likely there is a trailing space on the end and you'll need to escape it.
ReplyDelete