Invulnerable file?

[Aardpsymon]

This is a good one:

I have a user that has made a file called "hhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee.....doc"
but a lot longer. This file is now invulnerable. I can't delete it, I can't rename it, I can't open it. Context menu is....short. Open, Edit, New, Print, Open With and Send to are the only options I get the rest aren't even there, not greyed out, just gone.

Last time I had this problem it was with folders, someone made
h:\new folder\new folder\new folder\new folder\new folder\new folder\new folder\new folder ..... and it was too long to handle, but that said "folder is too long to delete" so I moved some of it to a higher directory then deleted it.

This fails silently and just won't do anything. Won't move, won't delete, won't rename.

Any suggestions?

[D0pp139an93r]

What do the permissions look like?

Have you taken ownership?

You can always delete it with a boot cd.

[Aardpsymon]

Can't see the permissions, no properties button in the context menu.

Logged on as domain admin so should have permissions anyway. Boot CD probably isn't going to be an option.

This is on the server, so its server 2003 OS. Problem with a boot CD is raid drivers etc. That and I don't really want to be taking the server down to do this.

[D0pp139an93r]

Can't see the permissions, no properties button in the context menu.

Logged on as domain admin so should have permissions anyway. Boot CD probably isn't going to be an option.

This is on the server, so its server 2003 OS. Problem with a boot CD is raid drivers etc. That and I don't really want to be taking the server down to do this.

You may have to log on as a local admin, and manually take ownership, rename, and delete.

[ShagDevil]

Have you tried to delete via the command prompt?
I also keep seeing this tip on other forums -

Open a Command Prompt window and leave it open.

Close all open programs.

You now need to close EXPLORER.EXE. The proper way to shutdown Explorer is to raise the "Shut Down Windows" dialog (select "Shut Down..." from the start menu), hold down CTRL+SHIFT+ALT and press the CANCEL button. Explorer will exit cleanly.

Note: The <CTRL+SHIFT+ALT> at the 'Shut Down Windows' dialog method of closing Explorer is built into Explorer. (It was specifically designed so that developers writing Shell Extensions could get Explorer to release their Shell Extension DLLs while debugging them).

Go back to the Command Prompt window and change to the directory where the undeletable file is located in. At the command prompt type DEL <filename> where <filename> is the file you wish to delete.

Go back to Task Manager, click File, New Task and enter EXPLORER.EXE to restart the GUI shell.

Close Task Manager

[SirDice]

I'd try on a command prompt.

del hhh*.doc should get rid of it..

[morganlefay]

I am curious...where did this file come from..

Smart a$$ user...just purposely trying to muck things up....

Malicious in nature

Maybe one to keep an eye on.

MLF

[dalek]

Try this little tool... Killbox

[Aardpsymon]

Not a malicious thing I don't think. Only thing she is messing up by making an undeletable file is her own disk quota. Only reason I'm looking to delete the file is because the backup tape is full. Stupid small backup tape.

In the end, command prompt without explorer running did the trick on the document at least, still have the document fragment to deal with, the funny autorecovery thing that word creates whenever you open a document.

*goes to get the axe*

[Aardpsymon]

ok, soooo...killing explorer, command prompt and

del /f /a:h ~$hhh*.doc did the job.

I genuinely didn't expect the command prompt to ever work, but oh well.