The
del command can be used at a
command prompt on a Microsoft
Windows system to delete files. But, if you try to delete a file using that
command without specifically specifying that you wish to apply the command
to a hidden file, you will receive a message stating windows could not
find the file. To delete a hidden file, you need to use the /ah
parameter before the file name as shown below.
C:\Users\enzo\Documents>dir /ah *.swp
Volume in drive C is Windows
Volume Serial Number is B688-ED25
Directory of C:\Users\enzo\Documents
02/18/2017 12:51 PM 12,288 .system.html.swp
1 File(s) 12,288 bytes
0 Dir(s) 1,954,264,215,552 bytes free
C:\Users\enzo\Documents>del .system.html.swp
Could Not Find C:\Users\enzo\Documents\.system.html.swp
C:\Users\enzo\Documents>del /ah .system.html.swp
C:\Users\enzo\Documents>The syntax for the del command is shown below:
C:\>del /?
Deletes one or more files.
DEL [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names
ERASE [/P] [/F] [/S] [/Q] [/A[[:]attributes]] names
names Specifies a list of one or more files or directories.
Wildcards may be used to delete multiple files. If a
directory is specified, all files within the directory
will be deleted.
/P Prompts for confirmation before deleting each file.
/F Force deleting of read-only files.
/S Delete specified files from all subdirectories.
/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to delete on global wildcard
/A Selects files to delete based on attributes
attributes R Read-only files S System files
H Hidden files A Files ready for archiving
I Not content indexed Files L Reparse Points
- Prefix meaning not
If Command Extensions are enabled DEL and ERASE change as follows:
The display semantics of the /S switch are reversed in that it shows
you only the files that are deleted, not the ones it could not find.
C:\>
