Remove a folder named con

Question

Despite the fact that you should not be able to create a folder named "con", my computer ended up with one.  I was using some command line software that does not normally use the standard output.  But it would take the name of a folder where it would write its file.  In a moment of mental lapse, I was thinking the parameter was the file to write to, so I put in "con" in an attempt to get the program to output to the standard output.  Instead, the software created a folder named con.  I cannot delete it.  When I open the properties dialog box, Security tab, I get "The requested security information is either unavailable or can't be displayed."  It will not let me take ownership.  I am a domain user that is in the the computer's local Administrators group.

I tried some of the commands in this thread:

"Access is denied" - "Unable to display current owner"

With takeown and icacls i would get "file not found" type errors.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

C:\TEMP>dir

 Volume in drive C has no label.

 Volume Serial Number is 8EA1-334A

 Directory of C:\TEMP

09/22/2015  01:09 PM    <DIR>          .

09/22/2015  01:09 PM    <DIR>          ..

09/22/2015  12:15 PM                17 asdf.txt

09/22/2015  12:12 PM    <DIR>          con

09/22/2015  01:09 PM               192 deploy.cmd

09/22/2015  01:08 PM                35 qry.sql

               3 File(s)            244 bytes

               3 Dir(s)  237,100,347,392 bytes free

C:\TEMP>cd con

The system cannot find the path specified.

C:\TEMP>rmdir con

Access is denied.

C:\TEMP>

Answer 1

Sahil,

That is one of the first things I tried.  Well, I tried it with the ren command in a command prompt.  That returns the error "The parameter is incorrect."  So I tried it now from Windows Explorer, and I got "Invalid file handle."

• Dan

Answer 2

Hello Jedi,

Welcome to Microsoft Community. I will certainly help you with the issue that you are facing.

Note: Using Third Party Software, including hardware drivers can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Third Party Software can be solved. Using Third Party Software is at your own risk.

Since you have used a third-party tool to create this folder and are unable to delete it, I would suggest you to try to rename the folder to any random name which is allowed by Windows. Once you have renamed the folder, try to delete it.

To rename it, right click on the folder and click on rename.

Also see,

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/libraries-faq#1TC=windows-8

Hope this information was helpful.