PC Support

Sometimes when you try to delete or rename a file/folder, you may receive a window that says: “Item not found. Could not find this item. This is no longer located in [folder]. Verify the item’s location and try again.” How to solve this problem in Vista.

Step 1: Open up a command prompt (run cmd.exe from the Start Menu).

Step 2: Navigate to the folder that the object resides in.

Step 3: Run “dir /a /x /p” to display the contents of the folder, including hidden files (/a) and 8.3 filenames (/x).

Step 4: Find the 8.3 filename of the object to the left of the regular, long filename.

Step 5:Run “ren ‘8.3 name’ ” to rename the object, “del ‘8.3 name’ ” to delete it if it’s a file and “rd /s <8.3 name>” to delete it if it’s a folder.

Tips:If renaming to a long filename, make sure to enclose the long filename in quotations. If that fails, temporarily rename it to an 8.3 name and then rename it to what you want outside of the command prompt.