Not able to move/delete/rename files

[naiku]

Hi

Does anyone else have this problem, I can sometimes go to delete/rename/move a file and XP will tell me that it is being used by another program etc and that I can't do anything to the file.

The thing is 99% of the time I am not doing anything with the file, I can then try to delete/rename/move the file a couple of seconds later and it will do what I want no problems. At the moment I have 1 file which does not want to delete, I have restarted my PC and yet XP still tells me its being used by something. Looks like I will have to try in Safe Mode which at the moment I can't be bothered to do.

Anyone else have this problem? or know of a fix to it?

Thanks

 

[MSeng]

The instructions below have helped some in the past...

Close all open applications.

Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory with the offending files.

Open Task Manager and click on the Processes tab, select "explorer.exe" under Image Name. Click "End Process". This will leave only the command prompt and the task manager running.

At the Command Prompt, delete the file(s) using the DEL command. Example c:>/movies/DEL movie.avi

After the files are deleted, go to the task manager and click on the Applications tab. Click the "New Task" button. in the dialog, type explorer.exe and click OK.

 

[dynamon]

What sorts of files are causing this trouble? I sometimes have the same problem, mostly with .avi files (divx).

From what I've gathered, my problem is related to the preview feature in My Computer and the codec for that particular filetype.

So, if I have an incomplete download of a divx video and I try to delete it, sometimes it fails with the same error message you get. That the file is being used by the system.

When I click the file, to mark it, it tries to gather some information about the file, but it cannot, and it gets in some loop, keeping the file open until reboot. Obviously same thing happens if I click the file again after reboot.

So what I do is reboot, open cmd and delete the file from there without problems.

Obviously this is not the most common cause for getting that error message, but it's a possibility.

 

[naiku]

Yeah the file I am having a problem with was exactly that, a .avi divx movie. The one I have though is a complete video, and I have the preview option switched off so it just shows the file icon.

Could still be the same problem though, one thing I am having a problem with is that the file is on a different partition of my main C drive (It's on drive D How can I use command prompt to delete the file on D? Simple I know! but I can't seem to do it...

Thanks

Naiku

 

[fib2358132134]

do you have more than one user on your windows xp that could be using the file?

 

[bullhlms]

Naiku,

While at the command prompt, type "D:" without quotes, and enter. then you can follow previous instructions to delete file.

 

[bullhlms]

Naiku,

While at the command prompt, type "D:" without quotes, and enter. then you can follow previous instructions (by Mseng)to delete file.