Thursday, August 6, 2009

Compressed (Zipped) Folders Error - cannot be compressed because it includes characters that cannot be used in a compressed folder, such

When you try to zip a folder by right-clicking the folder, hovering the mouse over Send to and clicking Compressed (zipped) folder, you may receive the following error " cannot be compressed because it includes characters that cannot be used in a compressed folder, such as ©. You should rename this file or directory", where is the name of the folder that you are trying to compress. The will have a full path. For example, "F:\Users\Public\Documents\New Folder\Copyright © cannot be compressed because it includes characters that cannot be used in a compressed folder, such as ©. You should rename this file or directory."
The reason for this error message to appear is the © character present either in the parent folder or within the files or folders inside the parent folder. Removing the © character from the file or folder name resolves the issue. Once it is done, you will be able to compress the folder.
From the picture in the right, there is a file named File Copyright © and a folder named Copyright © which are present inside the New folder. When you compress New folder, you may receive the error message 'F:\Users\Public\Documents\New Folder\Copyright ©' cannot be compressed because it includes characters that cannot be used in a compressed folder, such as ©. You should rename this file or directory. In this case, you have to rename both the file and folder.
| Posted by: ExcelUsefuls

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2012 at 1:37 AM

    But this may also happen when file/folder names are done with other chars, e.g. Hebrew letters. The question is then how can this be solved without renaming entire directories that don't use the Latin alphabet?
    thanks
    nm

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 4, 2012 at 11:48 AM

    This is a huge problem when replacing any WinXP computer with a Win7 one. Cut/paste just dies if there is a "problem" character in one of your XP files. Sending to zip will identify the first "problem" name Win7 encounters, but what if you've been using "-" in filenames FOR YEARS, let alone specials, like copyright, etc?

    Why does Win7 have a problem with compressing a file with any file name that is supported by the OS?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 14, 2015 at 12:49 PM

    And the answer to the May 4th question seems to be, "Because Microsoft doesn't care."

    ReplyDelete

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