Can Folders with invalid names be de;ete with Autoit script?

[Factfinder]

I have tried many different things with DirRemove but could not remove folders with invalid folder names.

As an example  folders with invalid folder names like the following:
 

C:Name...
C:Name...

 

 

Those folders can't be deleted manually.

rd /s/q CName... and rd /s/q CName... can remove them easilly.

The question is if there is an autoit script that can do the same, of course without calling cmd to do the job?

Edited September 6, 2013 by Factfinder

[soonyee91]

I have tried using DirRemove to delete folder and it works. Post your code here to have a look?

[Factfinder]

Yes, my apologies, not a good example.

Please try this one:

Edit: Removed this part to avoid using it with wrong intention.

You should have a dubdirectory under test with a name that consist of spaces and in this directory the folder with periods in the name. You can't delete this folder manually or with DirRevome("c:test",1). But rd /s/q c:test will remove it.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Factfinder

[Factfinder]

Just to add to the above post. After creating the folder if you apply rd /s/q c:test directly withut trying anything wlse, it removes the folder. But if you try to remove the folder manually first (you will get error with explorer) then apply rd /s/q c:test it will return an error that the directory is not empty. Now you need to apply rd /s/q ".c:test" to remove the folder.

[soonyee91]

Try using Runwait function.

Remarks from help file:

Paths with spaces need to be enclosed in quotation marks.

To run DOS commands, try RunWait(@ComSpec & " /c " & "commandName") ; don't forget " " before "/c"

[Factfinder]

Thank you. But that is not the question:

The question is if there is an autoit script that can do the same, of course without calling cmd to do the job?

[soonyee91]

As far as I know, DirRemove can't remove some dir attributes (which make the removal impossible).

Based on my knowledge, I think runwait is the best to solve your problem...

[Factfinder]

I was aware of calling cmd to do the job. Whether you run cmd from the command prompt, in a batch file or in an autoit script the execution of the command depends on CMD and that is not what Im looking for.

There should be a fucntion call, I'm not able to build one, to let inclusion of "?" to take care of the folder with invalid folder name. Here is an C++ example :

BOOL WINAPI RemoveDirectory(
  _In_  LPCTSTR lpPathName
);

In the ANSI version of this function, the name is limited to MAX_PATH characters. To extend this limit to 32,767 wide characters, call the Unicode version of the function and prepend "?" to the path.

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365488%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[Melba23]

Factfinder,

If all you want to do is prefix the path with "?" then try this:

DirRemove["\\?\" & $sPath)

M23

[BrewManNH]

I'd want to find out how the heck you're creating folders with names that are invalid to begin with. Either you're doing something terribly wrong, or some software you're using is doing it. Then I'd either stop doing it or deleting the software. Then you can start to worry about deleting these folders and never creating them again.

[ripdad]

You can't delete this folder manually or with DirRevome("c:test",1).

 

I had no problem deleting the folder with:

DirRemove("c:\test", 1)

[BrewManNH]

You should have a dubdirectory under test with a name that consist of spaces and in this directory the folder with periods in the name. You can't delete this folder manually or with DirRevome("c:test",1). But rd /s/q c:test will remove it.

If you can't do it with one tool, why are you objecting to doing it with another? Especially if the first tool is incapable of dealing with such terribly named folders? It's like insisting on using jackhammer to cut tiles when all it does is destroy them, when a tile cutter already exists to do the job correctly.

[Factfinder]

Factfinder,

If all you want to do is prefix the path with "?" then try this:

DirRemove["\\?\" & $sPath)

M23

 

I have already tried that with no success. But thanks for trying.

BrewManNH,

There is no intention to do any harm to anybody. If I in anyway offended anyone I apologies for misunderstanding. It is not me or a legit software doing it. The malware makers are already creating those folders and the victims need something to deal with it. They do this to make it more difficult for the average users to remove the bad folders. If you need to know which malware currently is doing this I can give you references as there are plenty of examples on the net (a recent example is ZeroAccess rootkit infection, if you wanted you may google it). I showed how you can create such a folder. But the aim is to find something against it (please note that I have already mentioned how to deal with it with cmd command).

If a mod finds my post inappropriate or thinks it shows bad guys to harm others, please feel free to edit or remove my post.

I believe this forum is a great forum. I have learned a lot from it and autoit has the potentiality to bypass CMD. I think I might eventually create the right DllCall function to do it, but for the gurus over here that is a lot easier. It looks an extended DirRemove would be a great addition to the function.

Thanks to all who cared to reply.

[martin]

Why no it use the windows api RemoveDirectory as done in the C example you showed earlier?

[TheSaint]

There was a discussion earlier, somewhere on this forum, that talked a little about a relevant element to this, and was linked to here.

If you read through, you will see it discusses the ? prefix

Edited September 8, 2013 by TheSaint

[Starg]

Try this:

DirRemove(FileGetShortName("\\?\" & $sPath), 1)

But why slow? Edited September 8, 2013 by Starg

[Factfinder]

Strag, I had already tried that. Thanks anyway.

Thanks to martin and TheSaint. I think I know how I should do this.

Thanks anyone for help. I think I can do this on my own when I get some time. So no need for assistance any more.