Solved Cannot remove a folder that ends with a "." (Unspecified error 0x80004005)

antspants · Saturday at 6:52 PM

Winuser said:
If they can stop certain characters from being used when naming a file makes me wonder why they can't do it when naming a folder.

I believe that it’s supposed to. Interesting reading here & there about it. Mostly above my paygrade.

Winuser · Saturday at 6:59 PM

antspants said:
I believe that it’s supposed to. Interesting reading here & there about it. Mostly above my paygrade.

If it's above your pay grade I'm not even going to attempt to look it up.

antspants · Saturday at 7:01 PM

Winuser said:
If it's above your pay grade I'm not even going to attempt to look it up.

I have a comprehension level that’s the same as the comprehension level of a brick.

Edwin · Saturday at 7:10 PM

I can't create a folder that ends with a period! It just won't stick!

pseymour · Saturday at 7:10 PM

Periods at the end of the file name are allowed in NTFS, but not the Win32 API. So if you create a file outside of that API, it'll work just fine. Then if you try to delete it via the API, you're hosed. The \\?\ syntax works because that tells the API not to parse the name, just pass it along to the file system.

garlin · Saturday at 7:16 PM

NTFS supports several characters that CMD shell can't handle. REN & RMDIR are built-in commands to CMD.

MS won't update CMD or Explorer, because there's a long history of backwards compatibility which needs to be maintained. Other programs can be stupid, so you need to protect them. PS was written with better intentions, which is why some commands support a -LiteralPath argument which doesn't exist for their CMD equivalents.

A common problem starts with file transfers from a non-Windows system, where they're not bound by the same naming rules.

kelper · Sunday at 2:05 AM

REN does not work on a folder with a dot using Command Prompt, nor does MOVE

Grammy · Sunday at 2:56 AM

Try Winrar
Right mouse on the folder, add to archive, make sure you tick delete files after archiving

kelper · Sunday at 2:58 AM

Grammy said:
Try Winrar
Right mouse on the folder, add to archive, make sure you tick delete files after archiving

Have you tested this?

Grammy · Sunday at 3:06 AM

Yes, on all windows, but I haven't used win 11 yet
The result was always awesome

A Guy · Sunday at 7:28 AM

batman44 said:
Either way I've tried rmdir /q /s (or just remove it with the winrar trick) and it didn't worked,

kelper · Sunday at 7:29 AM

WinRar does work, I tested it.

altae · Sunday at 9:09 AM

I'd simply boot a Linux live Iso (e.g. Ubuntu) and delete the folder under Linux. To me that's easier than fiddling about with CMD/ Powershell.

Grammy · Sunday at 10:01 AM

Is your problem solved?

Kees · Sunday at 11:25 AM

Grammy said:
Is your problem solved?

It is, see #27.

batman44 said:
Holy... that works, thanks a lot!

batman44 · Sunday at 11:56 PM

Grammy said:
Try Winrar
Right mouse on the folder, add to archive, make sure you tick delete files after archiving

Didn't worked in my situation.
Was also literally the first thing I've said I've tried in the very first post (as it usually did the trick before) xD
But "winrar trick" sounds too vague I guess, so my bad.

Either way I've tried rmdir /q /s (or just remove it with the winrar trick) and it didn't worked,
Tried to restart, didn't worked,
Tried to use some app called Advanced renamer to rename the folder and it didn't worked,
Tried to change security group didn't work because it not let me even see it in the security tab,
Tried scanned the HDD for errors... didn't worked,

LesFerch · 2025-06-09T08:50:31-0400

Using the \\?\ prefix, as @kelper recommended, should always work to remove a folder that has a name that ends with a dot. For example:

RD \\?\"F:\Program Files\Downloads\Folder."

or, if the folder is not empty:

RD /S /Q \\?\"F:\Program Files\Downloads\Folder."

Note that case does not matter, but the quotes are needed because the path contains at least one space.

Alternatively, you can use the 7-Zip file manager to first rename the folder to remove the trailing dot and then delete the folder.

Solved Cannot remove a folder that ends with a "." (Unspecified error 0x80004005)

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