Can't delete a file

[Adcadet]

ok, so I FTPed a file from a school server that contained a humorous 2.6 GB movie (.avi) last year's class made. Windows Media Player can't play it, even after downloading a codec, so I assume I got a corrupted download. But now I can't delete the damn thing - when I do Windows asks me if I'm sure then says "Cannot Delete (movie): it is being used by another program. Close any programs that might be using it." I look around, and there is nothing that might be using it that I can see. I booted into safe mode, and get the same warning. Does anybody know how I can get rid of this 2.6 GB boat anchor on my HD?

Thanks,
Adcadet

 

[Adcadet]

oh, I can't even rename the darn thing.

 

[Jan Kivar]

It's actually the Explorer trying to read the file to see if it has some info (title etc.) which it would then show at the Status bar.

First try to click the file with your mouse once (so that it's selected) and leave the computer alone for few minutes, then press Shift-Delete to remove.

If it doesn't help, try to delete it from command prompt (the windows one :wink, and make sure that there aren't any Explorer windows opened (better say, after a clean boot).

If it still isn't deleted, You might have to do the deleting in Recovery Console.

Cheers,

Jan

 

[Adcadet]

yup, explorer.exe is sucking up 50% of my CPU power when I single click on it (as shown in the task manager). Damn explorer.

 

[Adcadet]

OK, explorer is still at 50% CPU utilization (I'm running a dual machine). I suspect it may never fall back down to normal levels. I suspect I'll have to delete the file using the command prompt or recovery console. Hmm....in Windows how do I type in a file name with spaces?

 

[SteveC]

OK, explorer is still at 50% CPU utilization (I'm running a dual machine). I suspect it may never fall back down to normal levels. I suspect I'll have to delete the file using the command prompt or recovery console. Hmm....in Windows how do I type in a file name with spaces?

You could either put the name in quotes or just type in the first few letters followed by *.avi. For example:

del "movie with long name.avi"
or
del movie*.avi

 

[mubs]

This is exactly the kind of situation where a duallie rules. The bad proggie can eat only one proc, leaving the other to run the OS and control your m/c.

 

[Adcadet]

This is exactly the kind of situation where a duallie rules. The bad proggie can eat only one proc, leaving the other to run the OS and control your m/c.

Yup yup. Definitely nice.

Now if only I could get this damn file off my machine.

 

[flagreen]

Try rebooting and then immediately changing the file extension from .avi to whatever.

 

[jtr1962]

Try booting in pure DOS mode and then delete the file from there. You'll have to use the 8.3 equivalents of the folder and filename, obviously.

 

[Handruin]

1.) Open command window and change to the directory of the file.

2.) Open Task Manager

3.) End explorer.exe (leave task manager open.)

4.) Delete the file using the command window del "filename.avi".

5.) In Task manager, click on new task. Enter explorer.exe. Or, reboot the system when you are done.

See if that works. If not, use a program called "total commander" to delete the file. Search in google for the application, I don't remember where I got it from.

 

[i]

Jebus. If after all these suggestions you still can't delete that file, I suggest you arrange to borrow Tea's "precision impact adjustment tool". (Did I get that name right?)

 

[blakerwry]

This is one of the BIG annoyances i noticed when iw ent from 2k to XP.. I couldnt manage hardly ANY of my gigabytes of movie files... it seems sometimes explorer hangs on certain files while zips through others.. 2k doesn't even check for this info and I had lightnening quick manipulation of all files.

There is a registry edit you can do that will prevent explorer for checking the extra file information, but then you'll never be able to see that cool information like the audio bitrate, codec, etc...

Wish there was some timeout stting one could associate with this action, so that if explorer hasn't foud the info in... oh.. 1 second it should stop searching.

 

[Howell]

Possibly the index service?

 

[Adcadet]

sorry for the delay. I decided to just ignore the problem for a little while, and I just got around to it. When I open command.com, then killed off explorer.exe, the command window would disappear. Ug. Logged off, logged back on (which worked same as a reboot and saved time). I had two copies of this beast (re-downloaded it to a different drive in my attempt to get a working copy) - one was in a folder that I could (and did) delete. Used del "xyz*.avi" to delete the other copy (which was on the root of the drive) BEFORE clicking on the damn thing and getting explorer all up in a tizzy*.

Thanks for everyone's help!

Adcadet

*"all up in a tizzy" is an Adcadet Technical Term(R) that refers to a process that has ran away, sucking all the CPU power it can.

 

[theov]

There is a registry edit you can do that will prevent explorer for checking the extra file information, but then you'll never be able to see that cool information like the audio bitrate, codec, etc...

To be more specific:

Delete this one:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cl 
asses\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32

 

[Pradeep]

sorry for the delay. I decided to just ignore the problem for a little while, and I just got around to it. When I open command.com, then killed off explorer.exe, the command window would disappear.

Once you killed explorer.exe, just run "command" and you will get the window. Glad to hear you got the evil bastich in the end.