I know you're simplifying to make a point but doing strace cmd /c del test.txt | grep STATUS when you can't delete a file would be showing a lack of knowledge I don't need a study of muzzle gun velocity to know that a bullet fired out of that gun will kill me. Reminds me of university and the old "knowledge vs wisdom" debate with one of my great science profs who was trying to drill into our heads that the scientific method <> knowledge & wisdom -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Yong Huang Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 1:30 PM To: tanel@xxxxxxxxxx; riyaj.shamsudeen@xxxxxxxxx; ric.van.dyke@xxxxxxxxxx Cc: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Long Parse Time C:\temp>del test.txt C:\temp\test.txt Access is denied. Check the file attribute. Aha, it's set to Read-only. Using knowledge: C:\temp>del test.txt C:\temp\test.txt Access is denied. C:\temp>strace cmd /c del test.txt | grep STATUS Access is denied. .. 483 1060 428 NtSetInformationFile (76, 1241211, 1, Disposition, ... ) == STATUS_CANNOT_DELETE Look up "STATUS_CANNOT_DELETE" on Google and the first hit lists three possibilities returning this status. One of them is read-only file. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l