Can’t Delete File in Windows
I’ve never had a situation before where I had to figure out how to delete a “Can’t delete file”. Well…I downloaded a file the other day from Limewire (not porn) and I could not delete the file. I typically right-click and virus scan the file before I open it after I download it, but when I did this time there were no options. I couldn’t delete it, nor could I change anything with it. It was one of those files that had a different name after you download it. Something to advertise a site with out having to buy traffic like most people do.
Anyways, I started to look around to find a solution to this. Wasn’t sure if it was a virus, or just an odd file. Most of the places I looked had plenty of information on how to remove a file for many other issues, but apparently not for mine. In fact I tried most of them, and even downloaded some software in an attempt to remove the file.
Well…guess what? It was one of the simplest solutions you can ever imagine. I stumbled upon a message board conversation when looking around and there was a post in it with the information I needed, although ignored by most of the other participants even though it was the right one for the person that needed it. HE didn’t try it until after everything else.
It was because the name of the file, as well as the string of folders it resided in had too many characters in their descriptions. Apparently, in Windows, you can’t delete, move, or copy a file if the names of the folders that lead up to it, and the file combined have more than 255 characters. Since the file was the thing that was causing the problem, and had the most space to remove characters, you would think that was the solution. Problem is that you cannot edit that file if it is the destination. So…I had to rename every file before it to 1 letter just to remove enough characters to delete it. How dumb is this?
Spread the Word
Filed under: Computers and Internet by JMH
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to the RSS Feed
If this ever happens again, you can also open a dos box and delete the file by “del “filename~1.ext”
Thanks for the tip. Took me quite a while to figure this out when it happened to me due to it not being anywhere online that I looked for it.