Windows: “Cannot remove folder because it’s not empty.”

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

Now, maybe it’s just me. But I find something horribly wrong with that dialog. Let’s think about this.

It cannot remove the folder, true. The directory is not empty, that’s also correct. But the directory not being empty doesn’t quite seem like a valid reason for not being able to remove it. I’m pretty sure I’ve deleted folders before that weren’t empty. But here was the situation: I did not have permission to delete the folder, regardless of whether or not the folder was empty, because it didn’t belong to me. Now, let me show you how Mac OS X handles this situation:

I don’t own the folder, I can’t change it. An administrator can override this limitation by typing an admin password. Now, to me, that makes perfect sense.