Dead symlinks are not visible to samba (not in SMB traffic) and may be used to keep a directory from being removed. 12:04pm cmorris@ra /home/cmorris/WWW/samba_test/subdir #>ln -s /dev/null .iexist 12:05pm cmorris@ra /home/cmorris/WWW/samba_test/subdir #>ln -s /dev/null iexist 12:05pm cmorris@ra /home/cmorris/WWW/samba_test/subdir #>ln -s /dev/nonexistant .idontexist 12:05pm cmorris@ra /home/cmorris/WWW/samba_test/subdir #>ln -s /dev/nonexistant idontexist 12:05pm cmorris@ra /home/cmorris/WWW/samba_test/subdir #>ls -al total 2 drwxr-x--x 2 cmorris staff 512 Jul 23 12:05 . drwxr-x--x 3 cmorris staff 512 Jul 23 12:04 .. lrwxrwxrwx 1 cmorris staff 16 Jul 23 12:05 .idontexist -> /dev/nonexistant lrwxrwxrwx 1 cmorris staff 16 Jul 23 12:05 idontexist -> /dev/nonexistant lrwxrwxrwx 1 cmorris staff 9 Jul 23 12:05 .iexist -> /dev/null lrwxrwxrwx 1 cmorris staff 9 Jul 23 12:05 iexist -> /dev/null On my Windows XP SP2 client: When this directory is viewed in explorer (as Z:\WWW\samba_test\subdir) I only see the file '.iexist' and 'iexist'. When you delete the file '.iexist'/'iexist', and the directory is "empty", I go up one directory (to 'samba_test/') and attempt to delete the folder. It spits the strange error: "Cannot remove folder subdir: A file with the name you specified already exists. Specify a different file name." If I directly try to access the file (Z:\WWW\samba_test\subdir\idontexist) it gives the standard error: "Cannot find 'file:///Z:\WWW\samba_test\idontexist'. Make sure the path or Internet address is correct." just like it would with a file that truly did not exist.
Can you reproduce this with 3.0.25b? 3.0.9 is quite old. If yes, please upload your smb.conf and a debug level 10 logs of smbd under the failing attempt from Windows. Thanks, Volker