Cannot delete large files
 

I posted this on TFP 3.0, but it's occured again. I've got several large movie files that I can't delete. It gives me the "This file is being used by another person or program" error. The file is about 700 megs. I've tried going into safe mode and deleting it, but to no avail. I'm running Windows XP.

delete from command prompt.

The problem is caused by something where Windows is using it to get it into memory for the preview or something like that if I remember correctly.

I know there's a fix for this, but I unfortunately don't know where it is. I'm sure someone will post it here.

Until then, froseph has the right idea - boot into a command prompt - DOS boot disk or something - and delete it from there.

or safe mode

:rolleyes:

god damn, i'm a dipshit

It happens to everyone Dude :cool:

I had the same problem a few months ago, I was trying to delete a couple of movies I downloaded from Kazaa. I brought up the task manager, and on the processes I found a couple of things running that I did not recognize. After I shut them down, I was able to delete the movies. But I don't remember the name of the program I shut down.

If you've clicked on the file and the window is showing a thumbnail preview on the left, you can't delete it because it's open by Windows.

You can delete it from CMD.EXE or turn off the preview pane by changing the folder view. There may be other ways.

does windows XP have a ctrl+alt+del function? if so, do that, close out Everything but systray and explorer (or their XP equivalent). delete. restart programs as desired.

Turn off the auto preview that plays the movie on the side and that should do it. I have run into movies off kazaa that had invalid names that I couldn't delete normally. Eraser took care of those though.

http://www.gibinsoft.net/gipoutils/

go to that site and get move on boot under file utilities. the old version (at the bottom of the file utilities page) that is freeware works just fine.

this program will allow you to delete the file while your computer is booting. it works great.

I hate win windows XP does that to me. It's not always movie files either (also not always 110chars long filenames). I believe this happens when i try to delete it when the window is open, so i close the window. Then i keep getting the message until I reboot (sometime not even then)

This is the only thing that really annoys me about XP.