How to Delete or Remove LPT1.Dos

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Ball
  • Start date Start date
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Dave Ball

We have come across a file in a data directory that we
cannot kill. LPT1.DOS. I believe that it is a leftover
from before we upgraded from OS2 to NT3.51. We are
presently running NT 4.0 on the server and XP on the
desktops and we cannot get rid of this file. It is
causing us problems as we are using FindFast to search
the Data drives and it stops when it gets to this file
and will not go any further.

Does anyone have any idea how to get rid of the file
LPT1.DOS.

Thanks in advance.
 
Dave Ball said:
We have come across a file in a data directory that we
cannot kill. LPT1.DOS. I believe that it is a leftover
from before we upgraded from OS2 to NT3.51. We are
presently running NT 4.0 on the server and XP on the
desktops and we cannot get rid of this file. It is
causing us problems as we are using FindFast to search
the Data drives and it stops when it gets to this file
and will not go any further.

Does anyone have any idea how to get rid of the file
LPT1.DOS.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

try this from a command prompt... del
\\?\driveletter:\path_to_file\LPT1.DOS

If it doesn't work from the XP machine, try it from the NT server itself.

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
 
-----Original Message-----
try this from a command prompt... del
\\?\driveletter:\path_to_file\LPT1.DOS

If it doesn't work from the XP machine, try it from the NT server itself.

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
Click to expand...
Mike, I tried it from both machines, under XP I get an
error stating that it does not know how to run the progam
LPT1.DOS. On the NT4.0 server, it just seems to hang for
a while and then wants to know what program to use to
open the file. Nothing seems to work. I have tried
taking ownership of the file (with full control) and then
tried to delete it, but no go.
 
David Ball said:
Mike, I tried it from both machines, under XP I get an
error stating that it does not know how to run the progam
LPT1.DOS. On the NT4.0 server, it just seems to hang for
a while and then wants to know what program to use to
open the file. Nothing seems to work. I have tried
taking ownership of the file (with full control) and then
tried to delete it, but no go.
Click to expand...

There's a DEL in front of the \\?\driveletter:\path_to_file\LPT1.DOS so you
are deleting the file. Running it definately won't delete it.

so it's
del \\?\driveletter:\path_to_file\LPT1.DOS

Gotta love word wrap that confuses the situation :-)

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
 
There's a DEL in front of the \\?
Click to expand...
\driveletter:\path_to_file\LPT1.DOS so you
are deleting the file. Running it definately won't delete it.

so it's
del \\?\driveletter:\path_to_file\LPT1.DOS

Gotta love word wrap that confuses the situation :-)

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
Click to expand...
Tried that as well as ERASE and still no go. Tried it in
a dos box right at the appropriate directory as well as
at the root and typing in the whole directory up to the
lpt1.dos and all I get is the error "The system cannot
find the path specified" and the file is still there.
Even tried attrib to see what the attributes of the file
are, but it cannot find the file, therefore no info.

Gonna get a big hammer soon.
 
On Mon, 8 Sep 2003 13:21:11 -0700, "David Ball"

LPT1.* is a system protected name and can not be deleted by normal
means. You may be able to use something like the Norton Disk Editor
from DOS to remove the file. (Real mode DOS, not a DOS box within
Windows.) If the drive is formatted to NTFS, that isn't going to work
either.
 
Nah, I thought that too when I had a .com1 folder that I couldn't get rid
of. I finally got it though..

Try rd instead of del. That's what got rid of my .com1 even though I think
(if I remember right) it appeared to be a file.

Also, look through here:
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 120716
How to Remove Files with Reserved Names in Windows
http://tinyurl.com/mqhb

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
 
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