Force-remove files and directories in PowerShell fails sometimes, but not always

Solution 1:

help Remove-Item says:

The Recurse parameter in this cmdlet does not work properly.

and

Because the Recurse parameter in this cmdlet is faulty, the command uses the Get-Childitem cmdlet to get the desire d files, and it uses the pipeline operator to pass them to the Remove-Item cmdlet.

and proposes this alternative as an example:

get-childitem * -include *.csv -recurse | remove-item

So you should pipe get-childitem -recurse into remove-item.

Solution 2:

@JamesCW: The problem still exists in PowerShell 4.0

I tried another workaround and it worked: use cmd.exe:

&cmd.exe /c rd /s /q $somedirectory

Solution 3:

Update: Starting with Windows 10 version 1909, (at least) build 18363.657 (I don't know that Windows Server version and build that corresponds to; run winver.exe to check your version and build), the DeleteFile Windows API function now exhibits synchronous behavior, which implicitly solves the problems with PowerShell's Remove-Item and .NET's System.IO.File.Delete / System.IO.Directory.Delete (but, curiously, not with cmd.exe's rd /s).

The existing answers mitigate the problem, so that it occurs less frequently, but they don't address the root cause, which is why failures can still occur.

Remove-Item -Recurse is unexpectedly asynchronous, ultimately because the Windows API methods for file and directory removal are inherently asynchronous and Remove-Item doesn't account for that.

This intermittently, unpredictably manifests in one of two ways:

• Your case: Removing a nonempty directory itself can fail, if removal of a subdirectory or file in it hasn't completed yet by the time an attempt is made to remove the parent directory.

• Less commonly: Recreating a removed directory immediately after removal can fail, because the removal may not have completed yet by the time re-creation is attempted.

The problem not only affects PowerShell's Remove-Item, but also cmd.exe's rd /s as well as .NET's [System.IO.Directory]::Delete():

As of Windows PowerShell v5.1 / PowerShell Core 6.2.0-preview.1 / cmd.exe 10.0.17134.407 / .NET Framework 4.7.03056, .NET Core 2.1, neither Remove-Item, nor rd /s, nor [System.IO.Directory]::Delete() work reliably, because they fail to account for the asynchronous behavior of the Windows API file/directory-removal functions:

• PowerShell Core bug report
• cmd.exe bug report
• .NET Core bug report

For a custom PowerShell function that provides a reliably synchronous workaround, see this SO answer.