windows 7 - Can I directly specify the file name for fsquirt.exe and have it sent instantly?

I would like to delete all files and subfolders in a batch file in Windows 7 and keep the top folder. Basically emptying the folder. What's the command line instruction for that?

You can do this using del and the /S flag (to tell it to remove all files from all subdirectories):

del /S C:\Path\to\directory\*

The best Solution: e.g. i want to delete all files and sub-directories of parent directory lets say "C:\Users\Desktop\New folder\". The easy way is create batch file of below three commands.

cd C:\Users\Desktop\New folder\

del * /S /Q

rmdir /S /Q "C:\Users\Desktop\New folder\"

Here first it will clean all files in all sub-directories and then cleans all empty sub-directories. Since current working directory is parent directory i.e."\New folder", rmdir command can't delete this directory itself.

rmdir "c:\pathofyourdirectory" /q /s

Don't forget to use the quotes and for the /q /s it will delete all the repositories and without prompting.

This worked better for me when I had spaces in the folder names.

@echo off
REM ---- Batch file to clean out a folder
REM Checking for command line parameter
if "%~1"=="" (

echo Parameter required.
exit /b 1

) else (
echo ***********************************************************************************
    echo *** Deleting all files, including the ones in the subdirs, without confirmation *** 
    del "%~1\*" /S /Q
echo ***********************************************************************************
    REM Deleting all the empty subdirs that were left behind
FOR /R "%~1" %%D IN (.) DO (
    if "%%D"=="%~1\."  (
    echo *** Cleaning out folder: %~1 *** 
    ) else (
    echo Removed folder "%%D"
    rmdir /S /Q "%%D"
    )
) 

    REM All good.
    exit /b 0

)

If you want to delete all files in a folder, including all subfolders and not rely on some error conditions to keep the root folder intact (like I saw in another answer) you could have a batch file like this:

@echo off

REM Checking for command line parameter
if "%~1"=="" (

    echo Parameter required.
    exit /b 1

) else (

    REM Change directory and keep track of the previous one
    pushd "%~1"

    if errorlevel 1 (

        REM The directory passed from command line is not valid, stop here.
        exit /b %errorlevel%

    ) else (

        REM First we delete all files, including the ones in the subdirs, without confirmation
        del * /S /Q

        REM Then we delete all the empty subdirs that were left behind
        for /f %%D IN ('dir /b /s /a:d "%~1"') DO rmdir /S /Q "%%D"

        REM Change directory back to the previous one
        popd

        REM All good.
        exit /b 0
    )

)

And then you would simply call it with:

empty_my_folder.bat "C:\whatever\is\my folder"