Deleting a folder named "con"

On my Windows Vista desktop is a folder I downloaded from an FTP server with FileZilla. I tried to delete it, and most of it went (all the files, and most of the subfolders), but a subfolder named con stubbornly remains. Trying to delete it again results in nothing: no error messages, no prompt for permissions, simply nothing happens.

How can I get rid of this folder?

Desktop/a/b/c/d/con. Trying to delete folder b.

Also, if con is a reserved name, how did FileZilla manage to create it in the first place?

Solution 1:

con and other DOS device names are reserved only in the Win32 namespace, not in Windows or the filesystem themselves. Even in Win32, all file name parsing can be disabled by programs when the \\?\ prefix is added.

Running the following in Command Prompt should remove your folder:

rmdir \\?\C:\Users\TRiG\Desktop\a\b\c\d\con