>>>I am writing a program that needs to check for the existence of a particular directory. It then needs to delete everything underneath that direcotry (to include other folders) and the very last step is to delete the directory itself.
>>
>>Jeffrey,
>>
>>With the Windows Script Host it's a snap. Once you've verified the existence of the directory with the DIRECTORY() function

oFSO = CREATEOBJECT("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
>>* lcdir is the directory to delete
>>oFSO.DeleteFolder(lcdir, .T.)

Note that this deletes the folder, files, any sub-folders completely. IOW, they're not sent to the Recycle bin. The .T. parameter forces the deletion of any read-only files. All other file, including hidden and system folders are deleted regardless.
>*******
>I don't think you need a switch (in fact I don't think you can use a switch here)
>

>oFSO.DeleteFolder(lcdir)     && delete the folder, subfolders and files
>oFSO.DeleteFile(lcfile, .T.) && delete any file, even read-only
>

From the Scripting Runtime SDK on the second parameter:

force
Optional. Boolean value that is true if folders with the read-only attribute set are to be deleted; false (default) if they are not.

IOW, if a folder is marked read-only you need to use the switch. Otherwise, if one is a COM error will occur. Since VFP doesn't have access to the scripting error handler, in this case, it's better to be safe than sorry.