Topic: file cannot be deleted - still in use?

[blackpool_uk]

hi guys,

can anyone help me with this infruriating problem.

i've got a .avi file that when i opened with windows media player it errored.  so i closed down media player and tried to delete the file only to recieve 'file cannot be deleted...it is in use by other person, program etc'.

nothing else is opened, no other users are accessing the file.  ive tried a reboot but still can't be deleted???.

any ideas??....thanks in advance

[measter]

try booting into safe mode and deleting it. to boot into safe mode you press F8 during startup

[Camstop]

Hi Blackpool_uk and  

Although not a techie my self i was thinking to try what Measter suggested.

Can you tell us what operating system you are using and what the file size of the avi file is and you could always make sure you have the latest media player for your system from here. 8)

Failing this i'm sure a techie will be along shortly to help solve this problem.

[blackpool_uk]

hiya mate.

thanks for the replies.

i'm running XP, PC is at home so not sure on size, isn't that big though.

it's like it's cached somewhere that it's in use but i can't find where!.  tried searching the registry etc.

i'll try the safe mode option when i get home but in the meantime any other suggestions would be appreciated!.

thanks again.

[TR]

Hi Blackpool and welcome.

You could try this, not sure if it will work but worth a try.

XP automatically makes thumbnails of media items, even if you don't always view thumbnails.

When its doing this it locks the file and you cannot delete it.

All I need to do when this happens is rename the file to something other than .AVI say .OLD or .BAK and then I delete it and it will go, every time.

If you can't see the extension click on

Tools->folderoptions and select the 'View' tab.

Take the tick from the 'Hide extensions for known file types'

Good luck.


Hookstar

[Sandra]

I had a similar problem a week or so back which said the same.
It wouldnt go in safe mode, bringing up the task manager said it wasnt running but it still wouldnt go.
Then a few attempts later it went just in normal windows
Before you delete that file have you tried it in other players, it may just need some codecs that media player doesnt support ?
Go to properties and then summary and see what the audio and video type it is, it may be Xvid or Divx etc  

[Sandra]

All I need to do when this happens is rename the file to something other than .AVI say .OLD or .BAK and then I delete it and it will go, every time.

I'm not saying that it wont work Hooky but it didnt for me as it said I couldnt rename it as it was in use by another program.
I could copy it and delete the copy but couldnt move it or rename it.
The strange thing is I could overwrite it with the copy I made earlier but it still wouldnt go, then I just tried every few minutes and it went  

[blackpool_uk]

yeah tried renaming it but no joy.  also i made a copy and i can't delete that either???

[TR]

I can remember reading somewhere?? god knows where but its something to do with XP time tunnel   with AVI Files

Dont ask me where I read it LOL I cant remember yesterday  

[Sandra]

If you get this program called GSpot (no rude comments guy, its a handy tool and it works for me   ) from here :

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

Open your AVI file in it and it will tell you which codecs it needs to play it  

Just in case you dont really want to delete it after all, after a few reboots of your pc I am sure that you will be able to delete it like I did with mine  

[Adept]

Hi blackpool_uk

The information in this Microsoft Knowledgebase article might help your problem

[Dack]

Its a bug in XP when it comes to AVI files. The solution, if you don't mind editing the registry, is:

start->run->regedit

Then delete the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32

close regedit and then reboot the machine for the change to take effect.

Then Bobs your aunties live in lover.

[princeofdarkness]

hi can you tell me where you got this file did you download of of kazaa,mirc,grokster,winmx etc. because this happened to one of my friends that downloaded scary movie 3  

[Dack]

Talking about downloading illegal files from P2P or newsgroups is a bit of a no-no.

The same fix I posted above would work though.

[Sandra]

As an update to sticky AVI files, I have had 2 more since my last post.
I got an old program called XTREE Gold and to my amazement, even though I am running XP pro and NTFS drives, it delets them without a problem