FIXED “The requested security information is either unavailable or can’t be displayed”

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Problem

Two folders on a file server I administer had been created with a space at the end of the folder name. This is not allowed in Windows, but can something happen.

If I tried to delete these folders but I got the message “Could not find the item”

If I tried to view the security of the folder I got the message “The requested security information is either unavailable or can’t be displayed”

Solution

I found it was possible to delete the folders via a CMD prompt using the command;

rd “\\?\C:\path to bad sub dir\bad dir “

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21072767/windows-7-cant-delete-a-folder-with-a-trailing-space

14 thoughts on “FIXED “The requested security information is either unavailable or can’t be displayed””

  2. Thank you very much for this, i was struggling to delete a directory for 2 hours and this was the final command which actually worked. 🙂

    Reply

  3. elevated CMD vs Elevated Powershell
    had this issue on a 2012R2 File server – didn’t try non-elevated of either.

    appreciate the command and it resolved the issue for me – thought I was crazy!
    all old commands 8.3 version and others not working – (8.3 disabled on this server)

    Reply

  13. Thanks! This works for all the issues related to undeleteable folders (any wonky folder names)

    All the posts on windows help websites were troll. honestly I wish I can upvote you to the top of google search

    Reply

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