Delete exe file

you are not being stupid. I've seen reports of serious problems with deleting pc-imported files.

Let's see if the file has an immutable flag.

in terminal type
"ls -alo "
drag the file there again
and press enter. Post back the results.

try this. Open Terminal, type "sudo rm -f "
Don't type the quotation marks but don't forget the space at the end, drag the file
to the terminal window and press enter in terminal.
Authenticate (you won't see your password as you type it).
This should remove the file.

these appear ok except for some strange ACE. It shouldn't have prevented you from deleting the file but let's try to get rid of it and see if that helps.

run

chmod -N /Users/julian/"Hill Top"/Alice/Downloads/ysbinstall 10025353.exe

and try deleting the file. If that doesn't work I would try the following.
Move everything except for the bad file out of the directory /Users/julian/Hill Top/Alice/Downloads to some other location.

Create a new folder called Downloads on your desktop and move it to

/Users/julian/"Hill Top"/Alice

A pop-up will ask you if you want to overwrite the existing directory, so just say "yes".

I'm at a loss to explain that. Is this file in a directory with lots of other files?
Try listing everything in the directory.

The command would be

ls -aldeo path/to/directory/*

This should list all the stuff in that directory. We are interested in the line containing your .exe file

did you do it with sudo?

first try

ls -aldeo /Users/julian/"Hill Top"/Alice/Downloads/ysbinstall 10025353.exe

just copy and paste again and see what comes out. please post the results.

Message was edited by: V.K.

If a name of a directory in the path has a space you need to put that name in quotation marks or add an escape character.
In your case it should look like this:

ls -aldeo /Users/julian/"Hill Top"/Alice/Downloads

Message was edited by: V.K.

Ah, I got what you are doing wrong.
The first character in the command is a small "l" not a capital "i"

Just copy the line above.
better yet, try again

ls -aldeo path/to/file

I'm glad it finally worked out. Deleting those pesky PC files can be unusually difficult. In fact, I've read somewhere that if the filename contains unusual characters which OS X can't interpret, there is no way to delete such file at all! One has to reformat the HD. I'm glad you didn't have to do that!

did you remove the quotation marks?
the command should look like this:

ls -alo path/to/file