Note
Internally, NTFS treats folders as a special type of file. Therefore,
the word "file" in this article indicates either a file or folder.
Cause 1: The file uses an ACL
You may not be able to delete a file if the file uses an Access Control
List (ACL). To resolve this issue, change the permissions on the file.
You may have to take ownership of the files to be able to change the
permissions.
Administrators have the implicit ability to take ownership of any file
even if they have not been explicitly granted any permission to the
file. File owners have the implicit ability to modify file permissions
even if they are not explicitly granted any permissions to the file.
Therefore, you may have to take ownership of a file, give yourself
permissions to delete the file, and then delete the file.
You cannot use certain security tools to display or to modify permissions because the file has a non-canonical ACL
To work around this issue, use another tool (for example, a later build of Cacls.exe).
The Access Control Entries (ACEs) in an ACL have a certain preferred
sequence depending on their type. For example, ACEs that deny access
typically come before ACEs that grant access. However, nothing prevents a
program from writing an ACL that has ACEs in any arbitrary sequence. In
some earlier versions of Windows, issues occurred when Microsoft
Windows tried to read these "non-canonical" ACLs. Sometimes, you cannot
modify these ACLs correctly by using the Microsoft Windows Explorer
graphical security editor. This issue has been corrected in later
versions of Windows. If you are experiencing this issue, use the most
recent version of Cacls.exe. Even if you cannot display or edit an ACL
in place, you can write a new ACL that lets you to gain access to the
file.
Cause 2: The file is being used
You may not be able to delete a file if the file is being used. To
resolve this issue, determine the process that has the open handle, and
then close that process.
Depending on how the file is opened (for example, it is open for
exclusive access instead of shared access), you may not be able to
delete a file that is in use. You can use a variety of tools to help you
determine the processes that have open handles to files whenever you
want.
For more information about tools to help the processes that
have open handles to files, click the following article number to view
the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
242131 How to display a list of processes that have files open
The symptoms of this issue may vary. You may be able to use the
Delete
command to delete a file, but the file is not actually deleted until
the process that has the file open releases the file. Additionally, you
may not be able to access the
Security
dialog box for a file that is pending deletion. To resolve this issue,
determine the process that has the open handle, and then close that
process.
Cause 3: File system corruption is preventing access to the file
You may not be able to delete the file if the file system is corrupted.
To resolve this issue, run the Chkdsk utility on the disk volume to
correct any errors.
Bad sectors on the disk, other faulty hardware, or software bugs can
corrupt the file system and put files in a problematic state. Typical
operations may fail in a variety of ways. When the file system detects
corruption, it logs an event to the event log and you typically receive a
message that prompts you to run Chkdsk. Depending on the nature of the
corruption, Chkdsk may or may not be able to recover file data; however,
Chkdsk returns the file system to an internally consistent state.
For additional information about using the Chkdsk utility, click the
following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:
176646 Error message: The file or directory is corrupt...
187941 An explanation of CHKDSK and the New /C and /I switches
Cause 4: Files exist in paths that are deeper than MAX_PATH characters
You may not be able to open, edit, or delete a file if there are issues with the file path.
Resolution 1: Use an auto-generated 8.3 name to access the file
To resolve this issue, you may want to use the auto-generated 8.3 name
to access the file. This resolution may be the easiest resolution if the
path is deep because the folder names are too long. If the 8.3 path is
also too long or if 8.3 names have been disabled on the volume, go to
Resolution 2.
For additional information about disabling 8.3 file
names on NTFS volumes, click the following article number to view the
article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
121007 How to disable the 8.3 name creation on NTFS partitions
Resolution 2: Rename or move a deep folder
Rename the folder so that the target files that are deeper than the
MAX_PATH no longer exist. If you do this, start at the root folder (or
any other convenient place), and then rename folders so that they have
shorter names. If this step does not resolve this issue (for example, if
a file is more than 128 folders deep), go to Resolution 4.
Resolution 3: Map a drive to a folder in the structure of the path
Map a drive to a folder inside the structure of the path of the target file or folder. This method shortens the virtual path.
For example, suppose you have a path that is structured as follows:
\\ServerName\SubfolderName1\SubfolderName2\SubfolderName3\SubfolderName4\...
In this path, the total character count is over 255 characters. To short
the length of this path, to 73 characters, map a drive to
SubfolderName4.
Resolution 4: Use a network share that is as deep as the folder
If Resolution 1, 2, and 3 are not convenient or do not resolve the
issue, create a network share that is as deep in the folder tree as you
can, and then rename the folders by accessing the share.
Resolution 5: Use a tool that can traverse deep paths
Many Windows programs expect the maximum path length to be shorter than
255 characters. Therefore, these programs only allocate enough internal
storage to handle these typical paths. NTFS does not have this limit and
it can hold much longer paths.
You may experience this issue if you create a share at some point in
your folder structure that is already fairly deep, and then create a
deep structure below that points by using the share. Some tools that
operate locally on the folder tree may not be able to traverse the whole
tree starting from the root. You may have to use these tools in a
special way so that they can traverse the share. (The CreateFile API
documentation describes a method to traverse the whole tree in this
situation.)
Typically, you can manage files by using the software that creates them.
If you have a program that can create files that are deeper than
MAX_PATH, you can typically use that same program to delete or manage
the files. You can typically delete files that are created on a share by
using the same share.
Cause 5: The file name includes a reserved name in the Win32 name space
If the file name includes a reserved name (for example, "lpt1") in the
Win32 name space, you may not be able to delete the file. To resolve
this issue, use a non-Win32 program to rename the file. You can use a
POSIX tool or any other tool that uses the appropriate internal syntax
to use the file.
Additionally, you may be able to use some built-in commands to bypass
the typical Win32 reserved name checks if you use a particular syntax to
specify the path of the file. For example, if you use the
Del
command in Windows XP, you can delete a file named "lpt1" if you
specify the full path of the file by using the following special syntax:
del \\?\c:\path_to_file\lpt1
For more information about deleting files with reserved names
under Windows NT and Windows 2000, click the following article number to
view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
120716 How to remove files with reserved names in Windows
For more information about deleting files with reserved names
under Windows XP, click the following article number to view the article
in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
315226 How to remove files with reserved names in Windows XP
If you open a handle to a file by using the typical Win32 CreateFile
mechanism, certain file names are reserved for old-style DOS devices.
For backward compatibility, these file names are not permitted and they
cannot be created by using typical Win32 file calls. However, this issue
is not a limitation of NTFS.
You may be able to use a Win32 program to bypass the typical name checks
that are performed when a file is created (or deleted) by using the
same technique that you use to traverse folders that are deeper than
MAX_PATH. Additionally, some POSIX tools are not subject to these name
checks.
Cause 6: The file name includes an invalid name in the Win32 name space
You may not be able to delete a file if the file name includes an
invalid name (for example, the file name has a trailing space or a
trailing period or the file name is made up of a space only). To resolve
this issue, use a tool that uses the appropriate internal syntax to
delete the file. You can use the "\\?\" syntax with some tools to
operate on these files, for example:
del "\\?\c:\path_to_file_that contains a trailing space.txt "
The cause of this issue is similar to Cause 4. However, if you use
typical Win32 syntax to open a file that has trailing spaces or trailing
periods in its name, the trailing spaces or periods are stripped before
the actual file is opened. Therefore, if you have two files in the same
folder named "AFile.txt" and "AFile.txt " (note the space after the
file name), if you try to open the second file by using standard Win32
calls, you open the first file instead. Similarly, if you have a file
whose name is just " " (a space character) and you try to open it by
using standard Win32 calls, you open the file's parent folder instead.
In this situation, if you try to change security settings on these
files, you either may not be able to do this or you may unexpectedly
change the settings on different files. If this behavior occurs, you may
think that you have permission to a file that actually has a
restrictive ACL.
Combinations of causes
Sometimes, you may experience combinations of these causes, which can
make the procedure to delete a file more complex. For example, if you
log on as the computer's administrator, you may experience a combination
of Cause 1 (you do not have permissions to delete a file) and Cause 5
(the file name contains a trailing character that causes file access to
be redirected to a different or nonexistent file) and you may not be
able to delete the file. If you try to resolve Cause 1 by taking
ownership of the file and adding permissions, you still may not be able
to delete the file because the ACL editor in the user interface cannot
access the appropriate file because of Cause 6.
In this situation, you can use the Subinacl utility with the
/onlyfile switch (this utility is
included in the Resource Kit) to change ownership and permissions on a
file that is otherwise inaccessible, for example:
subinacl /onlyfile "\\?\c:\path_to_problem_file" /setowner=domain\administrator /grant=domain\administrator=F
Note This command is a single command line it has been wrapped for readability.
This sample command line modifies the C:\
path_to_problem_file file that contains a trailing space so that the
domain\
administrator account is the owner of the file and this account has full control over the file. You can now delete this file by using the
Del command with the same "\\?\" syntax.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/320081/you-cannot-delete-a-file-or-a-folder-on-an-ntfs-file-system-volume