Fix Remove-Item <symbolic link to directory>

If you make a symbolic link to a directory on Windows (with administrative privileges of course), and then try to delete said link, you get this:

|Y> Yes |A> Yes to All |N> No |L> No to All |S> Suspend [Default is (Y]
PS C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell> remove-item -Force .\foobar\
Confirm
The item at C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\foobar\ has children and the Recurse parameter was not specified. If you con
tinue, all children will be removed with the item. Are you sure you want to continue?

|Y> Yes |A> Yes to All |N> No |L> No to All |S> Suspend [Default is (Y]
n
PS C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell> remove-item -Force .\foobar\ -Recurse
remove-item : There is a mismatch between the tag specified in the request and the tag present in the reparse point
At line:1 char:1
+ remove-item -Force .\foobar\ -Recurse
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Remove-Item], Win32Exception
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

PS C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell> $error[0].Exception.StackTrace
   at Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InternalSymbolicLinkLinkCodeMethods.DeleteJunction(String junctionPath) in C:\Users\
anschwa\src\PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\namespaces\FileSystemProvider.cs:line 8447
   at Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.FileSystemProvider.RemoveDirectoryInfoItem(DirectoryInfo directory, Boolean recurse,
 Boolean force, Boolean rootOfRemoval) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\namespaces\FileSystemProvi
der.cs:line 2859
   at Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.FileSystemProvider.RemoveItem(String path, Boolean recurse) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\
PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\namespaces\FileSystemProvider.cs:line 2733
   at System.Management.Automation.Provider.ContainerCmdletProvider.RemoveItem(String path, Boolean recurse, CmdletProvi
derContext context) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\namespaces\ContainerProviderBase.cs:line 422
   at System.Management.Automation.SessionStateInternal.RemoveItem(CmdletProvider providerInstance, String path, Boolean
 recurse, CmdletProviderContext context) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\engine\SessionStateConta
iner.cs:line 1152

Remove-Item is thinking the link is a directory and so failing to delete it.

If the code is changed such that File.Delete(junction) is used instead of native calls, you get:

PS C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell> rm .\foobar\ -Force
Confirm
The item at C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\foobar\ has children and the Recurse parameter was not specified. If you con
tinue, all children will be removed with the item. Are you sure you want to continue?

|Y> Yes |A> Yes to All |N> No |L> No to All |S> Suspend [Default is (Y]
y
rm : Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.
At line:1 char:1
+ rm .\foobar\ -Force
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Remove-Item], FormatException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.FormatException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

PS C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell> $error[0].Exception.StackTrace
   at System.Text.StringBuilder.AppendFormatHelper(IFormatProvider provider, String format, ParamsArray args)
   at System.String.FormatHelper(IFormatProvider provider, String format, ParamsArray args)
   at System.String.Format(IFormatProvider provider, String format, Object arg0)
   at System.Management.Automation.Internal.StringUtil.Format(String formatSpec, Object o) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\Power
Shell\src\monad\monad\src\utils\StringUtil.cs:line 18
   at Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.FileSystemProvider.RemoveDirectoryInfoItem(DirectoryInfo directory, Boolean recurse,
 Boolean force, Boolean rootOfRemoval) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\namespaces\FileSystemProvi
der.cs:line 2863
   at Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.FileSystemProvider.RemoveItem(String path, Boolean recurse) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\
PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\namespaces\FileSystemProvider.cs:line 2733
   at System.Management.Automation.Provider.ContainerCmdletProvider.RemoveItem(String path, Boolean recurse, CmdletProvi
derContext context) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\namespaces\ContainerProviderBase.cs:line 422
   at System.Management.Automation.SessionStateInternal.RemoveItem(CmdletProvider providerInstance, String path, Boolean
 recurse, CmdletProviderContext context) in C:\Users\anschwa\src\PowerShell\src\monad\monad\src\engine\SessionStateConta
iner.cs:line 1152

It fails even sooner (I think because there aren't actually any children to pass delete recursively, so it gets an empty list; just a guess).

If you use Directory.Delete(junctionPath), it works just fine!

So, Remove-Item needs to a) not ask to recursively delete a symbolic link to a directory, and b) not recursively delete the directory, just delete the link. There's a right way to do this and a quick way to do this; as it is now, the FileSystemProvider code is all hacked up, and needs to be fixed.

I'm going to disable the symbolic link tests for Windows until we can solve this correctly.

Problem is, sym links behave differently on Windows vs. Linux. For a symlink that points to a directory on Linux, deleting the link does not impact the directory it points to. But I believe for windows, symlinks are much closer to hard links, and deleting it will delete what the link points to.

Do we have latest/greatest fix from CoreFx?

George Fleming (@palladia)

George Fleming (@palladia) Can you test this out again? We have the latest and greatest .NET Core packages.

Just FYI, this works correctly on Linux, except that it asks to remove the item recursively (even though all it does is remove the link).

Moving this to the next milestone as we're pending ported DVT/BRT tests.

Looks like Windows 10 1809 can't delete profiles even through wmi. Rm -r in powershell won't work either. It looks like the MicrsoftOfficeHub app is making weird links under "AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache". Remove-item says "is an NTFS junction point. Use the Force parameter to delete or modify this object." Remove-item -force says "There is a mismatch between the tag specified in the request and the tag present in the reparse point"

"cmd /c rmdir /s /q" works ok.

Eric Hiller (@erichiller)

Building upon what Eric Hiller (@erichiller) nicely shared, I created a PS function that uses pass-through arguments to customize the deletion of symlinks.

Used to remove links made with mklink

function Remove-SymLinks {
    Get-ChildItem -Force -ErrorAction Stop @Args | Where-Object { if($_.Attributes -match "ReparsePoint"){$_.Delete()} }
}

Example Usage
Remove-SymLinks -Remove all links in the current directory
Remove-SymlLinks -Path .\Builds -Recurse -Recursively Remove all links in the Builds Directory

Disclaimer, I am a C# expert and a wannabe PowerShell weekend warrior so be careful with that Recurse option.

Build.ps1 fix cleaning dependencies

FYI, I had the same problem today on PowerShell 7 and unfortunately the only way to remove the folder was through cmd /c rmdir /s /q C:\Users\Your_User_Name\Your_Folder_Name.
Sorry to give you a bad news :(

If anyone stumbles across this issue as I did trying to remove reparsepoints without deleting the underlying file use
(get-item $removethispathreparsepoint).Delete()

Only thing that worked for me on ps7

In my case this error manifested only under PowerShell 5.1 (and only for ItemType SymbolicLink, i.e. no problem on ItemType Junction on 5.1).
On PowerShell 7.1 no error was encountered when deleting the directory symlink.
PS: The command prompt rmdir command functions ok with both symlinks and directory junctions.

Harden HIGH-severity findings from technical audit

Change behavior of Remove-Item on symbolic links (PowerShell#621) (Po…

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Fix Remove-Item <symbolic link to directory> #621

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Fix Remove-Item <symbolic link to directory> #621

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andyleejordan commented on Mar 4, 2016

palladia commented on Mar 4, 2016

andyleejordan commented on Apr 10, 2016

andyleejordan commented on Apr 25, 2016

andyleejordan commented on Apr 28, 2016

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