Completely by accident, I created a file named ...
using Grunt.js for Node in Windows 8.
Is it possible to remove this file without having to reformat the partition?
Run cmd.exe
and type del \\?\absolutepath
. So if the filename is C:\tmp\...
then type del \\?\C:\tmp\...
.
Giving the \\?\
prefix makes the program use the Unicode version of the Windows file functions. These can handle more filenames than the ANSI versions. The Unicode version for example allows you to create or delete files named CON
, PRN
or NUL
which are old filenames which still have special meaning in Windows.
in addition to user2246674 and pnuts answer, I recommend you get "Unlocker" for Windows . It's a nifty little gadget - easy to download, install and use. All of my machines run it. If you have installed it onto your machine in Windows, simply right click the file and then choose "Unlocker" from the menu and then select "Delete" in the left menu options and click on OK.
This tool is quite useful even if something is writing to the file and has accessed it. It will UNLOCK it and you can delete it.
delete
. If both of those fail, grab mingw or cygwin and delete it. But, not programming related ...