Solved Cannot delete folder from the desktop...

[Taurine5]

I've tried CMD, I've tried dir /x to delete the folder using the 8.3 file name, I've tried booting into safe mode and deleting it from there, I've even tried deleting it in CMD in safe mode... nothing seems to work...

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[Brink]

Hello Taurine,

As a test, see if you may be able to open a "Open" "Save as" type dialog and delete the folder from within it instead. I found this method tends to sometimes work for deleting ghost files/folders.


For example:

• Open Notepad.
• Click on File (menu bar) and Open.
• In the navigation pane, click on Desktop under Favorites.
• See if you may be able to delete the folder in this Open dialog window.

If not, then you might see if you may be able to use the free program Unlocker to delete it.
Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Taurine5]

Thanks for the help, but none of the options worked for me...

Btw, it's an empty folder and I cannot rename it. Whenever I try to do something to it, the OS insists that it cannot be found, yet I can open the folder and put files into it.

EDIT: Ok, the folder name had an ellipsis at the end, but somehow I managed to remove them. Before I removed them, I saw that the folder strangely acted like a file, in that when I tried to rename it, it said "are you sure you want to change the file extension? The file may become unusable-" etc etc, and when the ellipsis disappeared, whenever I tried to open it, it would give this error:

(notice how the file name strangely has no quotation marks; the folder name has spaces in, and it looks as if the computer is confused because of it...)

 

[kegobeer]

Open up an elevated command prompt and navigate to the desktop. Do a dir and see what the directory name is. Use the rd command to remove the directory.

 

[Brink]

Taurine,

If you are unable to delete the folder in a command prompt in Windows 7 as above, then you might see if you may be able to in a command prompt at boot with step 2 in the tutorial below.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/55721-folder-delete-command-prompt.html

 

[Taurine5]

Open up an elevated command prompt and navigate to the desktop. Do a dir and see what the directory name is. Use the rd command to remove the directory.

kegobeer, I didn't exactly know what you meant by "elevated" so I assumed you meant CMD as administrator; this is what it coughed up:

The OS says it "isn't empty", so I will try and see if I can use any switches to delete the folder and everything it "contains".

EDIT: Holy crap, I did "rd /s /q <8.3 filename>" and it worked! Thanks everyone for the help, +rep to Brink and kegobeer

 

[kegobeer]

Glad you got it sorted.

 

[Brink]

That's great news. I'm happy to hear you got it sorted.