Trouble deleting a file

[Hannibal]

I recently downladed America's Army using Opera onto my desktop. Unfortunatrely the file is corrupted so I want to delete it. However when I try this I get a message saying that the file can not be delteted as it is being used by another person or program. I'm not sure what the problem is so would appreciate any help

[aym]

I think the installer is still running, either kill it in the task manager, or reboot your computer and then try to delete the file.

[Hannibal]

unfortunately I've tried that and it doesn't work. I've also started in safe mode and that doesn't work either.

[Miz]

Users of MoveOnBoot, which lets you delete files that are "in use," have given it good reviews.

A workaround that I use, although not very elegant has always worked, is to open any program with a File>Open option - Notepad, for example. Then go to its File>Open, browse to the file you want to delete, right click on it and delete it.

Trying to delete through Windows Explorer starts up all sorts of indexing and tunneling that keeps the file "in use" for quite a while, sometimes for all eternity. Deleting it through a program's File>Open feature seems to bypass all of that.

[Hannibal]

Thanks a lot Miz. The File>Open option didn't work, but MoveOnBoot did. It's a great little program.

[GhostRecon]

Maybe u could have deleted it through safe mode too?

[TwoRails]

Nice link, Miz !!

[Davidoo1]

I usually delete these the old fashioned way through the Command Prompt (like in DOS), navigate to the folder (directory for us old timers) and then type "del filename.exe".

[mikezel]

wow thanks miz! i've been waiting a long time for a program like that!

[Hannibal]

I should have thought to try it using the DOS prompt, but would it have overridden the "in use" considering that it is still working within windows? Does the DOS prompt ignore these sort of access constraints?

[glc]

Don't download large files to your desktop, it can take forever to do any operations on it. Download them into a folder somewhere else.

[RenamonXP]

When ever I get a problem like this and more often than not its with these huge damn .AVI movie files. I find that when you try and delete them you can't do it... but if you really want to go through all the trouble of booting in safe mode to get rid of it you can but I don't think you really have to do. As long as you delete the corrupted file along with something else it will go. I usualy just create a text file and delete the two together and it always goes I've never had a problem with it.

[rambler]

glc has a good point about using your desktop as a general store. Even I, perfect as I am (at least, people who owe me money say I am) pop the odd .TXT file there, but not multimedia MP3s, AVIs, and certainly not EXEs. Leaving these there will slow your desktop down, (after all, your desktop IS explorer.exe) and bootup as well. Your antivirus will scan items on your desktop each time it's refreshed after being hidden by a window for example.

There's a good reason why it can prove difficult to delete large files like AVIs or MP3s in explorer. If you have webview enabled with the preview pane, and select one such file, the dreaded Windows Media Player will open it to display it's nice little play panel on the left. If it's an AVI, it has to read to the end of the file to get AVI parameters, similarly for MP3s, the MP3 tags are at the end of the file. I think MS has published a fix for XP for this annoyance.

I used to have a little prog called FILEOPEN which showed what programs or processes had any files open, but it only worked on W9x.

[Hannibal]

Thanks for the tips about not saving to the desktop. It's not something I normally do as a friend a while ago told me it was a bad idea. Having accidently done so I now know why.

[Miz]

Hmmmm....since MoveOnBoot seems to work for those of you who have downloaded it, maybe I should try it, too.

To give credit where credit it due, I did find MoveOnBoot through another forum although I've forgotten which one, of course.