question 4 the computer folks out there

[oumartin]

I bought a dell notebook in November and was putting my sons christmas program on it off our camcorder. Well Ulead locked up and now I have an avi file in my documents that will not delete. it says its in use and cannot be deleted. I've tried to open it up again in ulead and nothing. I have tried to move it and renaming it. All to no avail.

Any suggestions?

[yermom]

have you rebooted?

[oumartin]

yes, I have daily tried to delete it. i've tried to do it in dos and every other way I know how. i tried to make another file and then copy over it and now I have two files that I can't delete. nearly 6 gigs of space used.

[oumartin]

got it yermon, thanks though

I had to end every single process possible in taskmanager. go to dos prompt and go into the folder and type del filename. finally!!!

yeah.

[yermom]

that's really weird that the program would restart processes after a reboot

[oumartin]

here is what I used to delete it. I followed this but ended up having to end every possible process in taskmanager that I could.
I'm tellin' ya, I've never had this issue until I got vista. maybe its some glitsch with the software I am using that is keeping it busy with some process.

With such an error message, I would try this:
1. Hit ctrl+alt+delete to open the Task Manager
2. Click on the Processes tab
3. Select explorer.exe and click on End Process
4. Click on New Task, type cmd.exe and hit enter
5. Type cd C:\Directory\subdirectory (wherever the file is located)
6. Type del nameofyourfile.here (whatever the exact filename is)
Usually the program tying up the file is explorer.exe. If dos still won't let you delete it, try (while still in that directory) typing attrib -r -a -s -h filename (where filename is the name of the file) which will remove any read only, archive, system, or hidden attribute, and then retry deletion of that file (step 6). After you're done, click New Task, type explorer.exe, and hit enter to get the ol' desktop back. You probably have the file deleted by now, but try that procedure next time you have the problem, as it has worked for me numerous times in the past.

may have to end all processes possible in taskmanager but this will definately delete the file.

[IBleedCrimson]

glad u got it fixed martin but in case u run into this problem again...
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

[Crucifax Autumn]

I woulda just booted into safe mode and deleted it, but good to see you got it.

[GrapevineSooner]

Yeah, going into a command prompt was a little overkill. ;)

[stoops the eternal pimp]

Unlocker does the trick..there are a couple others out there to that show you what process the file is attached to and you can find it a lot easier that way

[yermom]

is this a common Vista thing, or are you guys using this for XP too?

i never ran into this much with XP except for virus/spyware stuff

and the command prompt is never overkill ;)

[stoops the eternal pimp]

I used it on 2K (OS they used at the trucking company I worked at)...some systems had XP and I had to every once and a while on those machines but not much...and it was always a virus/malware/spyware situation

[oumartin]

I tried safe mode. The steps I followed was my only luck. I had never had this problem until vista but who knows. Thanks for those program links though