Ah, I suspect this may indeed be a Windows problem. I haven't had this happen to me with Firefox, but it did happen once with Opera.
Ironically, just last night I was reading about something totally different that may pertain to this. To quote (the descriptions regards Linux unless otherwise states):
Quote:
POSIX standards mandate UNIX file semantics. Deleting a file doesn't actually remove it; it just cuts off new access attempts in that it removes its directory entry.
Programs that already have it open can continue to use it normally, even though it no longer exists as an entry in the filesystem. Emacs actually used to do this as a form of portable file locking, back before there were standards for that sort of thing. Open a file, delete it, *bam* only the process that already has it open can use it for anything.
Overwriting a file is deleting it. Moving a file is deleting it. Renaming a file is deleting it. Unlinking a file is deleting it.
In some ways, this is bad, because it makes deleting files necessarily a two-step process, which slows down the filesystem implementation. First you remove the directory entry, THEN you add the blocks to the free list. The upside to this sort of behaviour is that even if the kernel loader is in the middle of loading the binary, you can safely overwrite it.
In contrast, NT has pervasive file locking. Just opening a file, by default, locks it in such a way that other programs can neither read nor write, if I recall correctly. And, no matter what, you cannot delete a file that is in use. The NT kernel will simply not allow it.
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So, I'm wondering if it has to do with the differences in how the NT kernel opens files. Couldn't really explain how, but that's what it sounds like to me at least. Not sure how something like this would be fixed. Perhaps if it were to create an automatic backup every time you closed, this way if anything was lost it wouldn't be TOO much at least.....pretty hackish, but I don't know what else could be done if it does, in fact, relate to the NT kernel itself.
(link to source:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=291932)