Regina Spektor refuses to leave.

[Toby]

Specifically, "Regina Spektor - Remember Us To Life (CD 2016) ", a folder that cannot be deleted in Windows 10.

 

I've tried deleting it normally. "Cannot be found".

I've tried shift+deleting. "Cannot be found".

I've tried moving it. "Cannot be found".

I've tried renaming it. - "Cannot be found".

I've tried deleting it via the command prompt. "The system cannot find the file specified".

I've tried hiding it. "The system cannot find the file specified".

I've tried deleting it with software specifically for deleting undeletable files. "File cannot be found".

 

I've tried putting a file inside it, which immediately creates an identical, duplicate folder, neither folder displaying the file I put inside, until I delete one of said folders (which it lets me do), at which point I'm left with a single, undeletable folder with the file I put inside it. The file I can do things with, the folder I still can't.

 

I've tried deleting the folder that the undeletable folder is in is in, after moving all it's other contents elsewhere, and then it tells me that folder can't be found either.

 

At this point I'm pretty sure I'm just stuck with her, but I thought someone might be able to recommend a ritual or magic spell.

[vanished]

Boot up Linux on a live USB and delete it.  I've done this many times in the past when Windows has been incapable of comprehending a path, such as one with a colon in the name.  I promise 100% it will work (unless your filesystem is really messed up, in which case I'd advise backing up everything and doing a format, but I have never seen this fail before).

[Votivee]

I had something like this happen to me with a file on my desktop once.

 

Pretty sure I used unlocker to get rid of it:

https://www.iobit.com/en/iobit-unlocker.php

[mariushm]

One of the characters is probably some weird one , like for example the minus character is not the negative sign but some unicode character like 0x2212 (math minus) ­­­­­­−  or 0x2500 (box drawing light horizontal) ─   or 0x0336 (combing long stroke overlay)  ̶  or a few others that look very similar.

 

You can probably rename it using the long path notation ..

 

Open a command prompt and type there a command that looks like this :

 

RMDIR /S /Q "\\?\c:\temp\folder"

RMDIR is the command to delete a folder

/S tells it to delete any folders inside the folder that you want to delete

/Q tells it to stop asking if you're sure you want to delete the folder called Folder

 

"\\?\" is a special character combination that tells Windows that the path may have weird unicode characters.

C:\temp\ is the path to the folder you want to replace, of course you change this with your actual path, like  D:\Music\ or whatever

 

When it comes to typing "folder" or in your case " Regina Spektor - Remember Us To Life (CD 2016)" , don't type it manually, use the rename option in windows explorer to copy in clipboard the file name, then go in the command prompt and paste the folder name

Don't forget the last " at the end, after you paste the album name

 

 

[Toby]

53 minutes ago, Votivee said:

Pretty sure I used unlocker to get rid of it:

https://www.iobit.com/en/iobit-unlocker.php

Turns out I already had this installed from the last time I tried to fix it. Nadda

 

38 minutes ago, mariushm said:

"\\?\" is a special character combination that tells Windows that the path may have weird unicode characters

.Three backslashes and a bloody question mark...That made all the difference. Regina has left the building, thank you.

 

1 hour ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Boot up Linux on a live USB and delete it.  I've done this many times in the past when Windows has been incapable of comprehending a path, such as one with a colon in the name.  I promise 100% it will work (unless your filesystem is really messed up, in which case I'd advise backing up everything and doing a format, but I have never seen this fail before).

I'll try this if I ever get a more stubborn tenant than Regina.

[mariushm]

10 minutes ago, Toby said:

.Three backslashes and a bloody question mark...That made all the difference. Regina has left the building, thank you.

 

Yeah, it works most of the time.  Rarely, you can't delete files because they're locked (in use) by other applications, but you can easily open Resource Monitor or Process Explorer from SysInternals Suite and see which app. has that file open.

 

Also, it's worth remembering this because it's also a fix for when stupid applications create folders in folders in folders and so on and you have file paths longer than 250 characters (or thereabouts, somewhere around that threshold)

Windows Explorer and various other file managers won't be able to move or rename or delete files and folders if the total path length is above that limit. But you can just move folder or delete it  by adding \\?\ in front of the path.

The \\?\ added in front of the path makes it possible to enter up to around 32000 bytes worth of characters (as some characters could take 2 bytes or more)