re: uau Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 1:05 am Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum Posted by ah-jay (1 messages posted) Hi all, If none of the tips here work for you, try mine. Load LFNDOS to enable long file name support under real DOS mode. Then use Norton Commander 5.5 to rename the undeletable file to any name you like. Then delete the file the usual way. Unfortunately using the wildcard (* or ?) trick won't work on some DOS versions and Windows require that you type the exact filename with (groan) the unprintable characters to be able to delete. In my case I had a file named "mzÉ" that I could not delete. Using LFNDOS and NC I found out that the file I was trying to delete had an unprintable extension (the block diamond symbol) which I can't even type on the keyboard with any Alt-NumKey code. I renamed the file and removed the annoying extension and I was able to delete the file with no problem. Hope this helps. ~Ah-Jay On Tuesday, August 17, 2004 at 8:36 pm, electroguy wrote: >Hello... > >If this helps anyone... > >I've had this problem and none of the aforementioned techniques worked, so I got >to thinking about my old DOS days and a thought occured to me: YOU CANNOT SEE UNPRINTABLE >CHARACTERS IN A FILE NAME!!! > >There are many extended character codes, any of which can find it's way into a file >name, either by corruption or naming directly. If you try to delete file with unprintable >characters by spelling out the file name without wild cards, it will not find the >file, logically. > >So, I decided to go to the folder where the file I was trying to delete unsuccessfully >was located, through a command prompt, and type the following command: > >del filename*.* /a > >...where "filename" is the path and/or name of the file. Example: del c:\temp\myfile*.* >(or del myfile*.*, if you're aleady in the folder where the file resides). > >That worked like a charm!!! > >I hope this helps some poor soul who has tried other methods unsuccessfully. > >Jim > > > Written in response to: re: uau (electroguy: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 at 8:36 pm) There are presently no replies to this message. All messages in this thread [show all] Cannot delete a file in XP (Tony: Thu, Sep 5, 2002, 10:12 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (troy: Thu, Sep 5, 2002, 10:38 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (sreenivas: Fri, Sep 6, 2002, 12:47 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Tony: Fri, Sep 6, 2002, 10:09 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (js: Wed, Aug 6, 2003, 2:10 pm) Using my Network to crack this puppy (js: Wed, Aug 6, 2003, 2:29 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (sreenivas: Sat, Sep 7, 2002, 10:01 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (gold_archimedes: Wed, Jan 22, 2003, 5:45 am) re: It's possible! (RobinWood: Fri, Jan 24, 2003, 4:45 pm) Your a living legend! (Robbie: Tue, May 20, 2003, 11:13 am) Bravo! (jgirl: Wed, May 21, 2003, 5:58 am) re: It's possible! (Mark Schacht: Sat, Aug 2, 2003, 5:07 am) uau (tartar: Mon, Feb 9, 2004, 2:11 am) re: uau (electroguy: Tue, Aug 17, 2004, 8:36 pm) re: uau (ah-jay: Wed, Oct 17, 2007, 1:05 am) re: It's possible! (Steve C: Sat, Dec 18, 2004, 2:45 pm) re: It's possible! (Rick: Fri, Feb 11, 2005, 3:45 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (tartfromhell: Thu, May 22, 2003, 1:30 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Lampje: Thu, May 22, 2003, 1:44 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Mnemonic: Thu, May 22, 2003, 4:30 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (C Shackleton: Sun, Feb 1, 2004, 3:22 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Brian: Fri, May 30, 2003, 12:02 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Bill Siris: Wed, Nov 4, 2009, 7:50 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (MartinM: Wed, Nov 4, 2009, 10:28 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Jupiter102: Sat, Nov 21, 2009, 6:20 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Crono: Thu, Jun 19, 2003, 1:58 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Imran: Sat, Jun 21, 2003, 11:41 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (simo: Mon, Jun 23, 2003, 9:02 am) !re: Cannot delete a file in XP! (Penguin Face: Sun, Aug 3, 2003, 3:06 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (samuel: Sun, Jan 23, 2005, 2:11 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (JM: Tue, Feb 8, 2005, 10:50 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Toestub: Mon, Nov 28, 2005, 8:30 pm) Cannot delete a folder structure in XP (Christin: Thu, Aug 16, 2007, 7:52 am) re: Cannot delete a folder structure in XP (Steve: Fri, Aug 24, 2007, 10:08 pm) re: Cannot delete a folder structure in XP (Steve: Fri, Aug 24, 2007, 10:32 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Mario: Mon, Aug 25, 2003, 7:39 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Carlos: Sat, Aug 30, 2003, 9:13 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (alex: Sun, Jun 22, 2003, 11:10 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (blingbling: Sat, Jun 28, 2003, 7:16 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (mark: Sat, Jul 5, 2003, 12:00 pm) File deletion error - XP W98 *$#!! (Barrie J: Thu, Jul 10, 2003, 12:51 am) re: File deletion error - XP W98 *$#!! (Barrie J: Mon, Jul 14, 2003, 4:19 am) re: File deletion error - XP W98 *$#!! (Juan: Tue, Jul 15, 2003, 6:32 pm) re: File deletion error - XP W98 *$#!! (Barrie J: Wed, Jul 16, 2003, 1:18 am) re: File deletion error - XP W98 *$#!! (Juan: Fri, Jul 18, 2003, 4:56 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Antony: Sun, Jul 27, 2003, 12:04 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Kerry Berg: Wed, Jul 30, 2003, 7:45 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (RevBlackie: Wed, Jul 30, 2003, 3:15 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Tobin: Thu, Jul 31, 2003, 1:30 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (RevBlackie: Thu, Jul 31, 2003, 5:16 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Martijn: Wed, Aug 27, 2003, 6:44 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (Ken: Fri, Sep 5, 2003, 9:14 am) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (eNos: Wed, Jun 15, 2005, 3:14 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (jose: Sun, Aug 31, 2003, 12:24 pm) re: Cannot delete a file in XP (sherman: Thu, Mar 10, 2005, 9:14 am) Reply or follow-up to this message Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum