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Q&A Delete "dosdevices" folder created by WINE from Windows

I have a backup of a Linux Mint install circa 2016. Individual files were copied using Ubuntu to an NTFS drive. Now I'm tar-ing and archiving the files, and trying to delete what's left. I made th...

1 answer · posted 2mo ago by Big Head Mode‭ · last activity 1mo ago by matthewsnyder‭

Question windows linux wine symlink

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Big Head Mode‭ · 2024-09-22T19:04:02Z (about 2 months ago)

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Delete "dosdevices" folder created by WINE from Windows

I have a backup of a Linux Mint install circa 2016. Individual files were copied using Ubuntu to an NTFS drive. Now I'm tar-ing and archiving the files, and trying to delete what's left.

I made the tar, and pressed delete, and got this very scary message:

![Image_alt_text](https://powerusers.codidact.com/uploads/7beub4z6wtvs2ulhy2i93caj0yln)

I hastily pressed "skip", deeply worried about my C and D drives.

I found the culprit:

![Image_alt_text](https://powerusers.codidact.com/uploads/p7xv74lytscx7abqedxv8ca7iyq7)

This appears to be a link created by WINE to map HDDs to WINE. And the filenames appear to be illegal in Windows.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1727532

How can I safely remove this in Windows? (I have WSL, but not everyone does.)

(Somewhat moot in my case, because I'm formatting the drive, but this isn't always easy.)

windows linux wine symlink

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