Won't let me delte a file....

  • Thread starter Thread starter William Cousins
  • Start date Start date
W

William Cousins

I have a file on my hard drive now that I cannot seem to
get rid of. I try deleting it and I get the "Windows
cannot delete this file, it is currently in use by
another program or person." Odd thing is, It IS NOT
being used by another product or person. Rebooting
doesnt help and I can't seem to find a way to force a
deletion of this file.

Any help would be great. It's driving me INSANE!!!

Will
 
Visit http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_d.htm#del for tips on
how to delete an undeletable file or folder.

[Courtesy of Kelly Theriot, MS-MVP]


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


| I have a file on my hard drive now that I cannot seem to
| get rid of. I try deleting it and I get the "Windows
| cannot delete this file, it is currently in use by
| another program or person." Odd thing is, It IS NOT
| being used by another product or person. Rebooting
| doesnt help and I can't seem to find a way to force a
| deletion of this file.
|
| Any help would be great. It's driving me INSANE!!!
|
| Will
 
It would help to say something about the file name and
properties.

Standard answers include...
1. Virus or Trojan
2. Spyware
3 System file

Solutions include scan with a current anti-virus. run SpyBot
Search and Destroy or AdAware, boot to Safe Mode or turn as
many processes off as possible using Task Manager
[ctrl-alt-del] to open.


| I have a file on my hard drive now that I cannot seem to
| get rid of. I try deleting it and I get the "Windows
| cannot delete this file, it is currently in use by
| another program or person." Odd thing is, It IS NOT
| being used by another product or person. Rebooting
| doesnt help and I can't seem to find a way to force a
| deletion of this file.
|
| Any help would be great. It's driving me INSANE!!!
|
| Will
 
Jim said:
It would help to say something about the file name and
properties.

Standard answers include...
1. Virus or Trojan
2. Spyware
3 System file

Solutions include scan with a current anti-virus. run SpyBot
Search and Destroy or AdAware, boot to Safe Mode or turn as
many processes off as possible using Task Manager
[ctrl-alt-del] to open.
Click to expand...

OR run Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com to locate the process that
has locked the file (use the Search menu). I find that WinXP's Explorer
sometimes locks media files so they can't be moved or deleted. Pain in the
butt.
 
William Cousins said:
I have a file on my hard drive now that I cannot seem to
get rid of. I try deleting it and I get the "Windows
cannot delete this file, it is currently in use by
another program or person." Odd thing is, It IS NOT
being used by another product or person. Rebooting
doesnt help and I can't seem to find a way to force a
deletion of this file.

Any help would be great. It's driving me INSANE!!!

Will
Click to expand...
Tried 2 start in "safe mode"?
Usually it works:it's cuz the "software" (application,virus or
whatever..) in normal mode uses the file,but in safe mode most of the
applications,drivers & so on aren't loaded..
This let's you do what you want with your files.

Let me know how it goes.
J
 
Try the following:
a) If you get "Access denied" error, try to change the
acl of the file and get full permissions on it. From the
command prompt, run cacls.exe and look for options.
b) If you get "...another program is using this file.."
error, try to boot into safe mode command prompt (not
just safe mode) and delete the file from command prompt.
c) I had tried sysinternals utilities, but could not find
any program or process using the file. However, this
confirmed that no program or process was actually using
the file.
 
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