I have files with extremely long file names which I cannot delete no matter how I use Vista or cmd prompt or a variety of file wiping programs. I cannot rename, move, copy or delete these files. Also I have a file with zero bytes that stubbornly refuses to be deleted. (It may be a junction point?)
I tried CCleaner to delete the folder and associated files, but no success. There seems to be no simple solution to this problem.
Can the authors of CCleaner use their expertise to overcome this common situation?
Can be a tricky problem with different things working for different people.
DelinvFile used to work quite successfully, but unfortunately it is not free now I guess you have tried all the usual shift/delete and making a new folder in Explorer and drag and drop files in and FileASSASSIN .
256 characters is the limit and if your files are inside folders and down a bit in the chain they soon add up.
Here is a thread starting 7 years ago about this and contains various things that have worked for people.
Junctions are too clever for Microsoft to have invented.
They are to clever for Microsoft to even understand what they have borrowed from other's intellectual efforts.
It was originally thought they were another form of desktop short cut that could be deleted, but it was soon discovered that unlike a desktop short cut, if you delete a Junction you also destroy the contents of the destination.
Instead of fixing their stupid implementation errors, they bodged it by recommending that the user should use CACLS to prevent such disasters.
A decade or more later and it still suffers the same flaw.
Windows 7 has now protected the Junctions it uses for compatibility with "Old XP" applications,
and as a result broken CMD.EXE.
I am still fuming from my discovery that batch files using CMD.EXE with "Old XP" paths only partially work in the vicinity of Junctions.
You may be even more distressed if you succeed in deleting a Junction and losing all your %USERPROFILE% etc.