What is '\Program Files\XEROX\NWWIA', and how do I get rid of it?

Summary: \Program Files\XEROX\NWWIA appears to be a harmless "ghost" file, and there is no need to delete it.

OK, this is one of the weirdest situations I've seen come up in a long time.

The short answer is that it does appear to be something related to "Windows Image Acquisition", which is a common component of Windows. Why it shows up empty, and why it remains protected by the operating system is as best we can tell, a mystery.

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For what it's worth, it benign. It's on lots of systems, including my own.

Using SysInternals Process Explorer I was able to tell that the windows logon process has the directory open. But I was able to find no reference to it in the registry. And apparently when you do manage to delete it, the system file protection service dutifully restores it.

There's a long thread on the subject out at the Annoyances.org discussion forum titled Deleting Ghost/Empty Directories that has many theories and a couple of ways to delete it, if that's really important to you.

Related:

Annoyances.org- Deleting Ghost/Empty Directories

Article 389 | Posted July 17, 2004