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Deltree Replacement

Bring the Deltree command back to WinXP, 7, 8, 10, 11.

If you used MS-DOS 6+ back in the day, you undoubtedly ran into the Deltree command. Deltree deletes a whole folder and all its subfolders in one fell-swoop. It was really useful when you had a large number of subfolders to delete. If you added the /Y switch, it wouldn't even prompt for confirmation, it just DELETED. Obviously this can be dangerous if you either 1) don't know what you're doing, 2) accidentally run it on the wrong folder or 3) are a victim of a malicious command.

For some reason, Microsoft decided to discontinue Deltree after Windows ME. NT-based kernels just didn't bundle Deltree with their distributions anymore. I'm not sure why, it was a useful command. I have re-created a modernized version of classic Deltree that will work on versions of Windows from 2000 forward. This is a command-line-only utility, and you can see the syntax in the screenshot below (running on Windows 10 64-bit). For easiest use, put it in a folder that is in your PATH, that way you'll be able to call it from any directory. But you really should only download this if you know what you're doing.

Again, you really should only download this if you know what you're doing. Let me clarify:

THIS IS A DESTRUCTIVE TOOL. IT IS LIKE FIRE FOR YOUR FILES. Like fire, it can be very useful, but it can also go out of control if you're careless with it. I take no responsibility, legal or moral, for any data loss you may experience through the use of this program, and you agree to these terms by using the software.

Updated May 26, 2022 to fix a wildcard bug.

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