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Peter Stegnar
Asked: 2009-07-04 06:23:49 +0800 CST

Windows: How to delete files with a too long name?

  • 772

I have a problem with delete, I would like to delete some folder which contains a number of files, and I am getting an error like:

Cannot delete Folder: The file name you specified is not valid or too long. Specify a different file name.

How on earth can I delete this? How to force to delete it?

windows directory

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    See http://www.ratsauce.co.uk/notablog/LongFilenames.asp

    JR

    PS for a folder use:

    rd /S \\?\C:\VeryLongFolderName

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  2. Try using a wildcard "*" after the first few characters of the name. Make sure you have enough differentiation so as not to delete what you don't want to.

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  3. You can do a dir /x to get the short file name, and then delete that.
    e.g. C:\AReallyLongFolderName can also be accessed or deleted using C:\AREALL~1

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  4. If it's on a network you can map a drive to the parent folder and delete it that way. You may also be able to subst a non-networked drive.

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  5. try to rename file or folder with smaller name or map folder as root then delete

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