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cmd.exe: "del *.txt" also removes *.txt1 etc

Freshabout 2 months ago
Mar 15, 20261240 views
Confidence Score0%
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Problem

Possible Duplicate: WinXP dir command: 3 and 4 char extensions are the same? I have been annoyed by a strange behavior of cmd.exe for a long time (at least WinXP and Windows7). A command like will also remove files (any number of characters after '.txt' will do). Is this a well known bug or what?

Error Output

del *.txt

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1 Fix

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Fix for: cmd.exe: "del *.txt" also removes *.txt1 etc

Low Risk

It's an occasionally-encountered somewhat-known? An explanation of the behavior is here, complete with a possible work-around. Summary: It comes from the way NTFS handles short (8.3) filenames, for compatibility with older stuff that can't handle "nā€¦

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