How to delete files with names that are too long?

[j_c_hallgren]

I was trying to clean up a folder that used to be my IE cache...I'd changed the location of it via IE, so it's obsolete...ok...fine..but somehow there are some files in various sub-folders to Content.IE5 that are over 255 in name length...how they got created in first place, I don't understand..

But some are as long as 273! And had we not had the ability to see length in XY, not sure if I'd have been able to count it...so thanks for that feature!

Anyway, when I try to delete these, I get a msgbox with "filename too long"...yea, so...ok...I tried to rename it to shorten it but get same error..

Thus, how do I get rid of these things? Do I need to boot up in DOS mode and kill em there?

[serendipity]

Since they dont seem important:
Did you try nuking them? or Shift+delete?
or maybe use some sort of shredder. Spybot has one.
or lastly, change the cache location back to this and delete using internet options>browsing history.

[j_c_hallgren]

Tried doing Shift+Del but that didn't work either...same error...XY put these into the 'locked' category.

So did a quick search on M$ support...only found one article that related to that issue on NTFS, but I'm using FAT32...however:

It did give one resolution that I'd not thought of.. Duh!
Rename the parent folders to make total name shorter!

So I renamed "Content.IE5" to "C" and its parent "Temporary Internet Files" to "T" and now the file name length was less than 256, so I was able to delete them with no problem...

BTW, thanks serendipity for the quick reply! I know I can depend on folks here to be prompt and helpful!

[TheQwerty]

It's been awhile since I've used this so I might be forgetting part of it, but you should also be able to use "subst" on the command line to link the path to a virtual drive letter. Then you can access the files with that drive letter and the path will be short enough to delete them.