Deleting undeletable files

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Guest

I have some files that I cannot delete using either Explorer, nor using the del command from a command prompt.

Specifically, in trying to delete a RIPrep image, it fails on some files that appear to be files that were in the IE-cached directories in the image. These files tend to have very long file names and I am suspecting there are some non-printable characters in the name that make them report "file not found" when you try to delete them.

Does anyone know of a utility that can be used to delete these?
 
From a command prompt try;

dir /x
and try deleting them using their 8.3 short names.


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


:
|I have some files that I cannot delete using either Explorer, nor using the
del command from a command prompt.
|
| Specifically, in trying to delete a RIPrep image, it fails on some files
that appear to be files that were in the IE-cached directories in the image.
These files tend to have very long file names and I am suspecting there are
some non-printable characters in the name that make them report "file not
found" when you try to delete them.
|
| Does anyone know of a utility that can be used to delete these?
|
 
Dave Patrick said:
From a command prompt try;

dir /x
and try deleting them using their 8.3 short names.
Click to expand...

This helps me in most cases. There is a situation where the file name has a "%" in it: TYPE%3~1

When I try to delete this name (the 8.3 name for a much longer filename), it comes back with File Not Found.

I am guessing that the shell is expanding the %3 as a variable -- how does one get around this (I tried putting it in double quotes, drawing from my ksh experience in Unix, but this doesn't help).

Cal.
 
hi i know how to basically delete files but the files i am trying to delete
keep saying acess denied it dosent let me do system restores and i cant even
view the folder the folder contains world of warcraft > wtf > user names >
characters. in that order i managed to delete most of them but there are
about 5 undeletable character files.? is there a way i can delete these?
 
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