Summary: \Program Files\XEROX\NWWIA appears to be a harmless "ghost" file, and there is no need to delete it.
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What is '\Program Files\XEROX\NWWIA', and how do I get rid of 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:
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Annoyances.org- Deleting Ghost/Empty Directories
Article C2129 - July 17, 2004
It is not. It is benign.
Posted by: Leo Notenboom at October 27, 2006 6:45 PMHere's what you do:
I owe this solution to 'twister', who lives/posts here:
http://www.asendtechnologies.com/vb/showthread.php?t=6868
This will give you added power over your Xtremely Pesky operating system. I did the
following and have had NO problems
Do a find on 'sfcfiles'. You need to do the advanced search option, and check 'Search
system folders', 'Search hidden files', and 'Search sub folders'.
Results will be sfcfiles.dll, in one or more places. Change all their names (highlight
the file and hit F2) to sfcfilesold.dll.
XP may tell you that you are being very very BAD, so tell XP to go piss up a rope...lol........
Restart, and voila, you can delete nwwia, xerox etc.
Posted by: becool at November 2, 2006 4:35 AMRef. http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/11/16/258220.aspx
..you may find an empty C:\Program Files\Xerox directory. What's that for?
This directory is being watched by Windows File Protection, because it needs to protect the file xrxflnch.exe should it ever show up. (Why does the directory have to exist in order for Windows File Protection to be able to watch it? I'm told it's a limitation of the Windows File Protection engine. I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that the FindFirstChangeNotification function can't watch a directory that doesn't exist.)
Why is xrxflnch.exe so special? I don't know. My guess is that it's some file that is frequently overwritten by setup programs and therefore needs to be protected.
Posted by: wguru at December 15, 2006 5:04 PMhahaha...I'm bookmarking this site!! I haven't laughed so much from reading a thread about a 'wtf is this file/folder' posting.
Posted by: MeganD at January 27, 2007 2:24 PMAnd yes, i was cleaning up my itsy bitsy master drive when I came upon and tried to delete that NWWIA folder....pffft, oh well, it can stay. I've had no troubles with it.
yes, it works ! change sfcfiles to sfcfilesold, reboot win and delete xerox and nwwia
Posted by: kmilewe at May 15, 2007 8:45 AMAbove adivice about changing name of sfcfiles, did NOT help. XEROX map is still not deleteable, it says its being used by something when I try to delete it. Any advice? As a matter of act I cant change any files from READ ONLY to editable.
Posted by: chanss at May 18, 2007 3:16 AMJust saw that my sfcfiles got recreated automatically by windows after reboot, so now I have both those one and the ones with 'OLD' at the end. what what?
Posted by: chanss at May 18, 2007 3:32 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Folks, let me really clear about something:
YOU DON'T NEED TO DELETE IT.
It's benign. It's not hurting anything. There's simply no reason to waste a
bunch of time trying to delete it.
Obviously you *should* be able to delete it - the fact that it's so difficult
is definitely a bug or problem of some sort. But it just doesn't mater. Just
leave it there, ignore it, and get on with more important things in your life.
Leo
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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at May 18, 2007 11:04 AMs4QMGPvU4lx6MaE2jeobMzs=
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but, how do i delete it?
Posted by: John Edwards at June 4, 2007 11:36 PM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Sigh. Please read the comment immediately preceding yours.
In my opinion: you don't.
I'm closing comments on this article since we just seem to be going around in
circles.
Thanks,
Leo
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