How do I delete empty folders?

[bol1]

I deleted some items out of Windows XP SP2 that I've never used. e.g the Windows Tour in Windows\help\tours and a couple of others. The files are a bit stuborn since windows file protection reinserts them but if you go first to windows\system32\dll cache and then back to the original folder you can get rid of them. That works fine but now I'm left with some empty folders that wont go. Not a big deal I suppose but would like to tidy it up. Any ideas on how to get rid of these? The message when I try to delete them says they are "in use by another service or program" which they are not!

Thanks Mike

[giradman]

Hello Mike, not sure that I can help much, but as you probably already know just deleting files in these 'modern' Windows OSs can be a pain w/o going through the usual Add/Remove applet or other means; issue might be in registry entries or other 'difficult to change' settings. In general, I tend not to 'tidy up' the appearance of Windows Explorer (wasn't it much easier in the old DOS days where all was stored in one directory! Let's start a movement for the next Windows version to operate in the same fashion & to DITCH the registry & the concept of DLLs!) - yes, wishful thinking, but life would be simpler (again!) -

[bol1]

Yes Uncle Bill has a lot to answer for! I guess since they are now just empty folders it's no big deal. But someone I talked to sugested that I boot from a Linux live CD and then go to the windows partition and delete from there. I haven't tried this yet though. The irony of all this is that I just reformatted my drive, set windows up on a seperate partition so I could start installing Linux for real this time. Maybe it's uncle Bills last act of revenge??

[GretaP]

Hi bol1,

Try d/loading and using Unlocker

[bol1]

Hi GrettaP!

I'll consider that, Thanks!

Right this moment I'm a more than a little cautious though. Since they are only empty folders I guess they could just stay. But last night I tried using Killbox to get rid of them but again no luck. Didn't shut the machine down and then later on I noticed a good number of files and folders in the C:\Windows were gone. I tried going back to a previous restore point but it wouldn't do it, not to any of them. This had to be caused either by 1; Killbox or 2; earlier in the day when I tried booting from a live Linux CD and getting them out that way (no luck either)

I spent this morning reinstalling OS and everything else and setting things up how I like and now it's alls perfect. So for the sake of three empty folders I might just leave them unless I can be totally sure this won't happen again!

Mike

[GretaP]

You're welcome