the dirs cant be deleted despite reboots. Com1 and other reserved names, leading spaces, etc.
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Can't delete directories that were hacked with strange characters
c:\inetpub\ftproot directory was hacked over and over again and has few dozen sub-directories with blank chars, .com %1, strange characters, etc. that gives messages like 'cannot file system file' or 'file in use by another process'.
How do I get rid of these directories?
I have already tried redirecting directories to text file and doing rd [dir name] and still get a cannot file file or file in use by another process.
A few solutions that wont work for me:
Manually doing it - there's hundreds of directories
Ideally want to be able to do it remotely thru remote desktop v. having to boot into DOS (if there's no other way, but least desirable solutions).
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Answers
Sure they did, but chkdsk will rename/delete any directory with illegal characters / names. If it doesn't then the name might not be the only problem. Be sure to use /f
About the "cannot delete system file". Use the attrib command to check that no directory or file inside is +r, +h or +s. Use the command "attrib /s /d -s -h -r" if necessary, then try to delete again. Also if it doesn't work try to rename them and then delete them (if you can rename them but not delete them then rename, reboot your computer then delete them).
The message "file in use by another process" only means that there is an application with the directory or a file inside open. You can use Process Explorer from SysInternals to find out which one.
Try it with this one:
Delete FXP Files
http://www.jrtwine.com/Pro
Your server got t@gged. The utility above looks like a pretty easy way to delete those folders, but it is also possible in windows from a command line. It just isn't very pretty.
How to Remove Files with Reserved Names in Windows
http://support.microsoft.c
I'm sure the software from oBdA would work; however, I like the free option from Microsoft if it can work. Any idea where I can download the rmdir mentioned in the article by llefebure (and again by ImranHashim). I do not have the resource kit CD or installed on the server and have spent 2 hrs searching for it. Have found some free MS resource utilities, but not the posix rmdir.exe or rm.exe?
rmdir is a part of Windows XP/2003/2000 and you do not need any external exe file for this. Here is the command help.
C:\>rmdir /?
Removes (deletes) a directory.
RMDIR [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path
RD [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path
/S Removes all directories and files in the specified directory
in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory
tree.
/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S
Ok great, everything is gone. Here's what I did for user reference:
rmdir \\.c:\[path]\[dir] /s - got rid of about half of directories.
2nd half had access denied. Shutdown ftp server in IIS and no more access denied - got a couple more directories.
then directories with blank - i.e. no characters in name to delete were left. Using dir /x got short names of hidden directories and used rmdir to remove those too.
Points split as folllows for following reasons: rmdir command did trick. I had seen MS article in past w/o luck. I see now that it is actually correct, but 1st part of article mentions that it's in Resource Kit Tools. rm.exe - tried doesnt exist. rmdir doesnt comes back w/o options display that most O/S commands have when not entered properly, so it wasnt until ImranHasim gave syntax and assured that it was std part of O/S that I went back & refocused there. Some to llefebure for initially mentioning however, and though free O/S solutions were better than paying & installing software - the links & articles provided by oBdA allowed me to get dir /x tip to access non-character directories.
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by: ChatablePosted on 2006-03-04 at 03:09:58ID: 16103003
While the reason for their existance might be odd, whitespaces, dots, percentage signs are perfectly legal characters for file names in Windows 2000 (Though they weren't in DOS).
The only illegal characters for file names in Windows are:
\ / : * ? " < > |
Anything else is OK, including international characters which may seem odd to you if your FS is FAT and your codepage is not set correctly (or simply because you don't speak russian/greek/hebrew/arabi
The message 'file is in use by another process' means that either an application has an open file inside the directory (can you delete all the files inside the directory?) or an application has set its current directory to that directory or a directory below it.
For instance, if there's a directory named C:\tempdir and you open cmd.exe and do "cd \tempdir" you won't be able to delete that directory until you cd out of it (or close the cmd window). Since you mentioned the directory is under ftproot (which leads me to believe that you're running an FTP server), check that there are no FTP clients that have that directory open.
If nothing works and you cannot find the locking process, just disconnect from the network, restart your computer and then when there is no external interference you'll probably be able to get rid of those.