MSNwar Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 Have you ever tried to delete a file in Windows Explorer and received the error message that it could not delete the file because it was in use? This can happen even when you know for a fact that the file is not in use. You may open a command prompt and try to delete the file with the Delete command. But this method also fails. Here's how you can delete an "undeletable" file. Follow these steps: 1. Close all open programs. 2. Open a command prompt. 3. Right-click the taskbar, and select Task Manager. 4. On the Processes tab, select Explorer.exe, and click the End Process button. 5. Minimize Task Manager, but don't close it. 6. At the command prompt, use the Delete command to remove the file, and close the command prompt. 7. In Task Manager, go to File | New Task (Run). 8. In the Create New Task dialog box, enter Explorer.exe, and click OK. 9. Close Task Manager.From Windows XP Tips Newsletter at TechRepublic.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 By doing that, you'd lose some of your system tray icons, and they will need to be restarted as well to come back.A better method is to download Process Explorer from sysinternals.com, type out the filename (or anything nearly related to that) in the Find Handle box. Then close the handle it finds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDog Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 I simply reboot... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toreach Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 Will that work for directories too? i havent tried much but running some system diagnose tools.its about a folder with a space at the end of it,"Command and Conquer Generäle Die Stunde Null " i dont know whats wrong with it but no contextmenue can be opened on this directory.i hope that hint will kill this directory....dont work, still there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSNwar Posted April 17, 2004 Author Share Posted April 17, 2004 toreach,Certain characters are a problem, i.e. TM. You might try renaming the folder and then try to delete it. Not sure about that, but it will only take you a few seconds to see if it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gamehead200 Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 Or...You can just end Explorer.exe and restart, then go to the file and delete... Works for me every time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XtremeMaC Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 yes the process explorer from sysinternals.com also processes the directories.ending explorer causes icons to disappear, as well as losing some unsaved info. simple example. position your files randomly on the desktop, close and reopen explorer.... arrangments.. gone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exodia Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 My icons always keep their positions after restarting explorer. Maybe that only happens when you 'kill' explorer through task manager, rather then ending it the proper way. The proper way to end explorer...Go to start then shut down to get the 'shut down windows' dialog boxHold alt,ctrl, shift and then press cancel. Explorer will shut down.And of course, alt,ctrl,del to get taskmanager so you can restart it.All of my system tray icons dont come back though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XtremeMaC Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 wow i never knew about that here's something elsepress ctrl + shift +esc to bring up task manager..i dunno how many of u are using xp manager but when u change a setting it prompts u whether u want to restart explorer or not. now when it restarts the explorer everything remains the samei had some other program that did thisso there is a way to restart kernel. so there must be some more proper way of doing it.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barbarian Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 You can try this one when using XP ProAdministrative toolsComputer managementShared FoldersOpen FilesDisconnectDelete file Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XtremeMaC Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 ? how is that closing the file?if someone on the network is using the file yea u can get rid of them like this but they're talking about a file being used by explorer.exe..... not to be rude or anything.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piaqt Posted April 18, 2004 Share Posted April 18, 2004 I use WhoLockMe. It adds an entry to the context menu, will show every process that's using this file/folder, and has a "Kill Process" button. Oh yeah. It's free! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zero187 Posted May 30, 2004 Share Posted May 30, 2004 How would you close a file from within the command prompt? Like if i wanted to end the process "Iexplore", how would I do that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neophyte Posted May 30, 2004 Share Posted May 30, 2004 You can just as easily use the cmd.exe to delete the file using the del command, without terminating the process that is causing it to get locked. For the majority of time, this will work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zero187 Posted May 30, 2004 Share Posted May 30, 2004 how would you close out of a process? Anyone? I don't need the del command, i want to close out of Iexplore.exe in a batch file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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