Persistent folders

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I’ve been trying to delete a number of folders from my system and keep getting an error message-

Cannot remove folder XXX: There has been a sharing violation.
The source of destination file may be in use.

These are totally empty folder trees, the files have all been deleted and the only application I know of using them is Windows Explorer where I’m trying to delete them.

Any ideas?

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restart in MS-DOS and remove them that way..

use the RD command to remove the directory.

RD C:WINDOWS will remove the C:Winodows Directory. (Which of course, would NOT be a good idea… )

Hope that helps!

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Sorry, that doesn’t work in NT. There is no boot to MS DOS mode. I should have said I was running NT but it was posted in the NT forum.

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Apologies if it is an obvious question, but I presume you have enabled viewing of ALL file types under Options . . ?

Otherwise, is it possibly a shared folder with someone else accessing it?

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You will get that error if you try to delete a folder that Explorer has open. If you are using Explorer with the tree in the left pane and the current folder contents in the right pane, then open the parent of the folder you want to delete in the tree. Then, in the right pane, right click on the folder and select delete from the context menu. If you only have the content pane, then navigate to the parent folder, and right click on the folder and again select delete.

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I suspected that as a possible problem in the tree version of Explorer long ago and tried it. It doesn’t make any difference. Just for grins I closed Explorer and went into My Computer to try the single pane interface, same results.

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Are these folders on a networked drive? If so someone may be attached to this folder and not allowing you to delete it.

Also are any of these made by the OS or any program?

Remember that ‘My documents’ can be deleted but will come back, also ‘Links’ in Favorites, and My Pictures under My Documents.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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These are all on local drives and not shared.

Some of these folders where created by a Visio install (C:Program FilesVisio…).

Some were created by me as an attempt to re-install Visio (M:binVisio_InstallInstall…). I manualy copied “Install…” from the CD to the folder I created M:binVisio_Install using Explorer.

Some had nothing to do with abortive attempts to install Visio (C:WINNTProfilesxxxxxxDesktopdewitt1_advanced_developmentAdmin)

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Make sure that you have ALL hidden and system files shown and extensions on, by turning them on in the views area of explorer. You could have a hidden file in these folders.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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First change I make to any system I work on along with Display full path, include description bar and just before I change 98/ME/2000 systems to use the classic interface instead of the stupid web page view.

There are no hidden files I can’t see unless there’s some other switch someplace I haven’t found yet.

Most of this stuff came from a CD rom originaly. I have discovered that if I go through and uncheck the Read Only box on the properties that I can then delete some of them but not all. Rebooting also helps.

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If you restart, and depress F8 while loading, do you get an option to start in DOS then?

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With in Explorer got to the Menu, Tools, Folder Options.
Select the “View” tab, you will see a Folder icon Hidden files and folders, the there are two ‘buttons’ click the “Show hidden files and folders.
Then a short ways down CLEAR the entry “Hide file extensions for known file types” and “Hide protected operating system files”.

On this last one I will clear it only when I am trouble shooting and the go back and check it off again. This will help you in protecting the system files.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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As I said in my reply, this is the first thing I do to any system I work on I’ve been doing what you said for the last 5 years.

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I came across a folder today that I had created some time ago, and when I went to delete it – no can do – somehow the read-only attribute was turned on. Turned off the read-only and I was able to get rid of it. Is it possible that is what has happened to you?

The difference between Genius and Stupidity:
A Genius knows their limits.
- Albert Einstein

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I beleive I commented on this in the 01/04/20 17:06 reply.

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Sorry, I skipped right over that one. The only other thing that I can think of is that somewhere in the registry entires, probably in another application, is a reference to the folders that you are trying to delete.

The difference between Genius and Stupidity:
A Genius knows their limits.
- Albert Einstein

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If you re-start, and press and hold F8 (or CTRL on some systems) you should get the ‘safe mode’ menu, which will give you an option for MS-DOS. Or, you can go to http://www.bootdisk.com Get a caldera DOS disk, and manually delete the folders.

I don’t think you will be able to delete them while you’re running NT.

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See if this tip at JSI helps.

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Not directly but I did look at a few of the other Sysinternals utilities. One of them Filemon v4.33 gives you real-time info on what’s happening to a file/folder. I set it up to filter out everything except operations on one of the miscreant folders, tried to delete it and came up with this-

36 9:08:28 AM EXPLORER.EXE:119 FASTIO_DEVICE_CONTROL M:binVisio_InstallInstallbinWindowsProfilesApplication Data FAILURE IOCTL: 0x70000

Any idea what IOCTL: 0x70000 is?

Thanks

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At a guess InOutConTRoL . . .? . . and sounds like it’s related to Visio.

Do I understand you have uninstalled Visio?
Might be worth looking at this then:

Q282234 How to completely remove Visio

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I did the Visio uninstall thing a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t exactly solve my Visio problems but I’m past that. (See the Visio forum).

IOCTL is indeed InOutConTRoL, the question is what is 0x70000. It has nothing to do with Visio. It has everything to do with the NT file system. I have this problem with things other than related to Visio.

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Ok – I’m running out of ideas here, I’m afraid.
I’ve got lost on whether or not you still have Visio installed (after reading your post in the Visio forum.)
My last guess is that you do have it installed and are trying to delete the folder you installed it from. At a guess, NT may not let you delete it in case you need to do an ‘Add/Remove Programs’ to it and it will have stored the install path.
Run a search in your registry and see if the path name(s) crop up. If they do, you could try deleting or changing the references (backup/export first), reboot and see if that helps.

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I had Visio installed, I riped it out by the roots after Add/Remove refused to, I then eventualy managed to reinstall it but as I said in my last posting –

THIS PROBLEM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH VISIO!!!

I’m sorry I used that folder as an example. As I also said in the last posting, there are several other folders that have nothing to do with Visio, have never had anything to do with Visio and will never have anything to do with Visio that I can’t delete. I’ve searched the registry for several of these problem folders and they aren’t there.

I think the key to this is going to be finding out what IOCTL: 0x70000 is. It’s probably the return value from a call to the procedure FASTIO_DEVICE_CONTROL in EXPLORER.EXE. If I could find out what that return value means I might understand what the issue is.

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Try this one
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q120/7/16.asp

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The del …… syntax goes through the motions and doesn’t do anything. rm tries to delete but returns with an illegal operation message.

The saga continues.

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OK – few more straws – apologies if you tried these:

Permissions – have you tried taking ownership?
Can you rename any of the folders?
Can you copy the folder tree?
Are you trying to delete a tree? – or bottom level up?
From command prompt, navigate to the lowest level and do a DIR – does it list anything other than the parent folders?

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If you have Admin privlages, make a NEW admin type user account. Lggin as this new admin, and try it.
I noticed that some of these folders are in the profiles area, “(C:WINNTProfilesxxxxxxDesktopdewitt1_advanced_developmentAdmin)”, if you are loggin as the user of this folder, I do NOT think that you can delete it, it is in use by your loggin.

To clean up, some of the different folders of the Admin account, I have had to loggin as another Admin user and do the deleteing. I am running Windows 2000.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Permissions – have you tried taking ownership?
Doesn’t change anything.

Can you rename any of the folders?
No, “Sharing Violation”

Can you copy the folder tree?
I copied a branch of the tree to anouther part of the tree and then deleted the copy.

Are you trying to delete a tree? – or bottom level up?
yes – both

From command prompt, navigate to the lowest level and do a DIR – does it list anything other than the parent folders?
No, just . and ..

Thanks anyway

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Some more links to try
1. http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q228/9/30.ASP
2. http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q184/4/08.ASP
3. http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/q181/3/45.asp

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This realy only applies to files that NT is using as part of its operating system. These are folders that have never been associated with the operating sytem and contain no files.

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Still got the problem?
If your c-drive is FAT, I assume you have tried booting with a MS-DOS floppy and manually deleting them from there?
Otherwise:
These two links at ">JSI may be able to guide you through setting up a batch file to do the deletion on startup.

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I just wanted to share with you that I have had a similar problem with empty folders that could not be deleted on NT server. I regularly delete large subdirectories, and occasionally one of the folders will absolutely not allow itself to be deleted. I have tried all of the things that others suggested to you, with no result.
But.
Whenever I go back to the server I try to delete the folder using the normal means. (I’m stubborn, I guess). Every time I’ve had this problem, I’ve been able to delete the problematic folder after a long period of time, >1 week, has passed.
I know, it’s not much of a solution, but at least you can hold out hope that they will someday ‘unlock’ them selves

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I’ve had a similar experience, must be just as stubborn I guess.

I’ve also used Filemon.exe (http://www.sysinternals.com) to watch what happens when I try to delete somthing sticky. What I found was the following failure when I tried to delete something-

36 9:08:28 AM EXPLORER.EXE:119 FASTIO_DEVICE_CONTROL M:binVisio_InstallInstallbinWindowsProfilesApplication Data FAILURE IOCTL: 0x70000

Any idea what IOCTL: 0x70000 is?

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There’s a good chance CBD’s solution at post 268357 on the Windows 2000 forum works on WinNT too!
More info down there…

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Thanks for the info but I don’t have this machine anymore, that was three years ago.

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Hi Chris – I guessed so (it’s allready a nice surprise you’re still around, as three years is almost an eternity in the virtual world
but I thought other readers still might be interested to know
cheers – hasse

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Hi Chris – I guessed so (it’s allready a nice surprise you’re still around, as three years is almost an eternity in the virtual world
but I thought other readers still might be interested to know
cheers – hasse

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Thanks for the info but I don’t have this machine anymore, that was three years ago.

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There’s a good chance CBD’s solution at post 268357 on the Windows 2000 forum works on WinNT too!
More info down there…

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