How to delete a folder containing trailing spaces

Question

I have a bunch of folders on my hardrive that have trailing spaces in them (I have no idea how they got there). I need to rename and/or delete them, but windows won't allow me to do this. Is there any way around this problem?

I've tried to delete it via the commandline, but that did not work.

I'm running Win XP, and it's a NTFS drive.

Answer 1

First try some quoting:

rd "my folder   "

Then UNC paths:

rd "\\.\C:\temp\my folder   "

Then 8.3 names (if they are enabled on your system):

rd myfold~1

Then a Linux LiveCD:

rmdir "/media/blahblah/temp/my folder   "

Answer 2

Then the DOS name:

dir /x
rd FOLDER~1

Then the (UNC?) name which I'm not sure how to find or what exactly it looks like:

rd \Device\HarddiskVolume1\temp\folder
rd \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1\temp\folder

Answer 3

I had the same problem, in Windows 7 x64, and none of the command-line solutions worked here.

What fixed it for me:

• Rename the folder using 7-Zip
• Delete, either using 7-Zip or Explorer (both work)

Note that deleting the folder in 7-Zip before renaming it was impossible.

Answer 4

boot with a live cd of ubuntu and you will be able to delete anything you want.

to boot with the cd you should change the boot order in your bios settings.