Question Cannot rename files or folders on NAS or PC

[kep55]

For some reason I cannot (re)name a folder. When I enter the name after either selecting "rename" or by doubling on the Name box, two error messages show. The first is



The second is

I've killed and restarted file explorer beaucoup times. I've tried right after starting windows. ALL new folders, be they on the C drive, E drive, or mapped to the NAS device. It's NOT Norton, NOT my NAS. It's WINDOWS as my laptop which is connected to nothing has the same problem.

When I tried to change the folder attributes from Read-Only to Read/Write, windows will reset them to read only. Admin / User / Owner have Full Access. Giving Everyone the same has no effect.

What gives? More mictosoft features to force me to abandon win10?

 

[KingLoki]

Are any apps not opening at all or it's only file/directory problems?

Fix for 'Windows cannot find' error in windows 10/11

There are many factors that may cause “Windows cannot find” error in Windows. Many Windows 10 and Windows 11 users have reported this error.

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[johnbl]

what was the directory name. Windows has a lot of reserved names that you can not use.
it is pretty easy to use a linux system and put up reserved names that windows can not remove. I think windows 11 now has a registry setting to allow the reserved names.

old reserved names were ported from the days of DOS
and involved any built in device name with any extension.
for example you could not make a file called con.txt
so if you created one with a 3rd party OS then you could not remove it, or copy it, then it broke backup software on windows.
leading spaces or trailing spaces were also a problem. many windows ui would strip out the spaces, some did not. the actual filesystem did not care, just the user interface.

 

[Ralston18]

I would be wary of any thing that involves registry edits, etc..

= = = =

First: where and how are you trying to change file attributes? You will only be allowed to do so in accordance to the rights that you have as a user.

Second: What I am interested in is seeing some of the pathnames, folder names, and files names being used along with some hierarchy: Drive, folder, file......

Maybe some screenshots. Take full screenshots of the applicable windows and post the screenshots here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

Seeing how you are actually entering/configuring drive and pathnames may prove helpful.

 

[kep55]

Here's what's happening.
1) I collect reference works for use in writing sermons.
2) I create a New Folder, either by right clicking on drive and selecting New, or selecting Home> New Folder
3) I then try to rename the "New Folder" to the topic at hand, say, Luke 4_14-21.
4) Error messages shown above appear.

This occurs with literal and mapped drives, i.e., "C - Documents" drive or mapped MyCloud "W - Reports".
I am the owner, administrator, and chief cook & bottle washer on the machines.
No setting have been changed since systems went live, except for compulsory windows updates.

UPDATE: Just for <Mod Edit>and grins, I uninstalled Norton 360 and ran CCleaner and Advanced Uninstaller. I tried to rename an existing folder and once more got the same errors as I show in the original message.

 

[johnbl]

just to be clear your file name was "Luke 4_14-21"
not "Luke 4_14-21." file names can not end with the character (.)
if you have embedded spaces you should quote the file name or the user interface might parse it wrong. (bug)

UI should strip off the quotes, leading and trailing spaces.
I have see bugs where alternate interfaces do not strip off the leading and trailing spaces. causes the UI to have problems.
and you have to use quotes to fix or use cmd.exe commands to rename or remove the names/files

 

[kep55]

just to be clear your file name was "Luke 4_14-21"
not "Luke 4_14-21." file names can not end with the character (.)
if you have embedded spaces you should quote the file name or the user interface might parse it wrong. (bug)

UI should strip off the quotes, leading and trailing spaces.
I have see bugs where alternate interfaces do not strip off the leading and trailing spaces. causes the UI to have problems.
and you have to use quotes to fix or use cmd.exe commands to rename or remove the names/files

The period was for indicating the end of a sentence, otherwise what was written was the name. The underscore was used as the colon is a reserved character. I tried renaming a folder from "Catalogs" to "Catalogs Test" and got the same errors. The quotation marks are included as per the Chicago Manual of Style.

 

[johnbl]

The period was for indicating the end of a sentence, otherwise what was written was the name. The underscore was used as the colon is a reserved character. I tried renaming a folder from "Catalogs" to "Catalogs Test" and got the same errors. The quotation marks are included as per the Chicago Manual of Style.

depending on the c programming function used by the user interface. You might need to put actual ' characters around the file name if they have an embedded space. Some c functions would parse catalog test as two names. but 'catalog test' as one name.
leading and trailing spaces also cause issues depending on the C programming function used. C programming delimiters

I think you would also get a error if you tried to rename a directory while a file in that directory or a the directory was in use.
for example:
start cmd.exe
md dog
cd dog

start cmd.exe
cd ..
ren dog dog2
would return a error since the first cmd.exe processor is using the directory dog. the second command processor would get a error trying to rename it. you would also get a error if a file in the directory was in use by a word processor,