delete a stubborn file

Well, I got a movie file from a friend through msn, so, it went to my received files. It was an incomplete .avi, so, I used kazaa lites avi completer to export what I had to a different video file.
So, then, I tried to delete the original file, which was blahblahblah.partial.avi
Well, it wont delete. It says another program is using it. On top of that, it promplty crashes explorer (explorer takes up 100% of my CPU, and then starts taking RAM, up to about 120mb).

Does anyone know why this is happening? I will try to remove it in safe mode in a minute, but, still, I would like to know why I cant delete it.

 

Try this:

Open up a command prompt. You can do this by going to Start then Run and typing cmd.exe depending on your operating system. If you have problems opening a command prompt, post back and we'll help you out.

After you've done that, leave the command prompt open and open task manager. You can do this by hitting Ctrl + Alt + Delete or right-click the task bar at the bottom of your desktop and the menu should display an option to open task manager depending on your operating system.

Next, under the task manager, go to processes and find the process explorer.exe. This is your shell. Highlight it and click end process. It will give you a warning, which you should hit "yes" on. When you do this, don't freak out, but your desktop will disappear. Now, go back to the command prompt you've left open. Do this by hitting Alt + Tab or find it under the Applications on the task manager.

In the command prompt, navigate to the folder that holds the file you want to delete. Navigation under the command prompt may require some experience. You can type help to get a list of commands you can use, but basically you just type cd c:\movies\blah\ then once in the folder that holds the partial .avi file, you can type delete blah.partial.avi. This should take care of it.

Once you're finished, go back to the task manager, go to File then New Process and type explorer.exe and enter to bring back your desktop. If explorer was the process that was using this file, you would be able to delete it by ending explorer.exe. This has happened to me before and I was able to remedy it this way. Be sure you understand what you have to do to bring your desktop back, otherwise, you'll have to reboot the computer just to bring your shell back. Good luck

 

WinXP Preview(Feature in explorer.exe) tries to extract information from all the files in a folder. If a file is broken(partial), then explorer.exe might start to act funny.

 

i had a similiar experiance. it sounds like you know more about kazaa than i do (what is .avi completer?)
but many times i would download what i think is one movie and it is really anouther. so i try to delete it, puter tells me that it is in use by anouther program

i look in my running processes and can't find anything i could imagine is useing it. i still haven't figured it out to this day.
however, sometimes if you ... sneak up on the file, it doesn't know you are comeing, and it isn't ready you can delete it.

i had one (a broken "lord of the rings") would go away for the longest time. one day i defraged, restarted my computer, and jumped strait to my shared folder and BANG got it.

of corse if you are running kazaa when you try and delete it kazaa could be the one useing it.

i hope this is allmost as helpfull as i want it to be

 

T-Rex's idea worked (thanks )

green_newbie; with the newest kazaa lite, in the program folder from the start menu, there is an entry for avi preview. What it does is get all the video info it can from an incomplete file, and plays it. It also has the ability to export what it has into a complete file. It can be very useful. It is what kazaa uses to preview movie files.

 

Well I know this is an old topic but I am having the same problem ChrisC had. I have a file on my desktop and I can't delete it. It says the file is currently in use. I am running XP Pro, and have tried safe mode with no luck. I tried T-Rex's idea, but apparently I don't know how to use the command prompt because it keeps saying it can't find the file to delete. Anybody know how to get rid of it?

 

Use one of these options:
# Rename the file so it no longer has the extension of a media file
# Create a new folder and move the file into the new folder and delete the new folder
# Close all explorer.exe and use the command-prompt.
# Boot in safemode and delete the file, as the preview feature is disabled.

 

Cool. All I had to do was to check the "show file extensions for known file types" in folder view options and then change it from an .exe to a .wmv and it deleted just fine! (I also just uninstalled Norton Systemworks so that could have also been the problem, I'm trying McAfee VirusScan Pro 7.0 now, what do you guys think about that program?)