Cannot delete a start menu folder

[dane1]

A firend installed Math Advantage on his computer. The program was total trash. The installation procedure must have been written by total idiots, as it reported numerous errors, suchas "c:\program files\math advantage\*.* does not exist .. etc etc.

So he tried to uninstall it, and the program came back with more stupid errors "cannot find uninstall log".

he brought it to me and I manually deleted the installed folders. Then i cleared his registry of all references to Math Advantage.
Then in
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Math Advantage .. I deleted all shortcuts.

But I was unable to delete the folder Math Advantage itself.
message appears : "Cannot delete file: cannot read from source file or disk"

Then I went to CMD window and tried to delete the folder with RD ....
but the directory is not found.

I tried CD into that directory and DOS claims it doesn't exist.

Figuring it was some type of 'virtual folder' created by some idiotic programmer at Math Advantage, I went back to the registry and voila, there Math Advantage was back in the registry HKLM.... start menu...

I deleted again all refs in the registry, but same result tyring to delete folder.

Went back to registry,, presto.. again Math Advantage was back in the registry.

Searched C drive for all files & folders with Math in the name, found nothing except the mysterious undeletable folder

Searched C driver for files & folders CONTAINING "math" and found nothing relavent.

I would have moved all folders from the start menu and then tried deleting the folder above, but that can't be done, as the START folder cannot be moved or deleted from "all users"

Obviously something is recreating the Math Advantage folder in the registry, but WHERE & WHAT ???

.. yes I tried all above in safe mode.
properties of the folder are given as only the location, no other properites shown. Obviously it is a very special type of folder, so how to get rid of it ?

[dane1]

well "I" managed to solve it. After 6 different Google seaches I found a very smart person on a support forum.

I'll post that here as I'm sure other people need solution, judging from the large number of unsolved posts on the web for same problem.

the solution:


A DOS command I never used turns out to be the answer.

START | RUN | CMD | (navigate to the DIR holding offending folder) | DIR /X

that gives the 8.3 folder name. Then I could use the normal command:

RD mathad~1

[s3200.com]

OMG!!!!! finally that ****er is gone!!!

i had to do one more step,

it was giving me an error about the folder not being empty

type:
rd <foldername> /s

if you have that same problem


thanks a mill!