Cant delete a certain movie file

[John]

Hi. Im having some difficulty in deleting a specific
movie file from my computer. Whenever i try to delete it,
an error message pops up and tells me that the file is
being used by another program/person, and thus cannot be
deletetd. I tried going into fail safe mode but i still
got the same message. I cant move the file to another
directory or rename it either. Any suggestions?

 

[janet]

-----ctl-alt-del
-----find it in processes
-----end process
-----delete file

this works for me

 

[John]

That doesnt work, because, see, no one IS using the damn
file. Thats the wierd part. Its not listed under
process,and no matter if i start windows in failsafe
mode, restart her or whatever, i still cant delete the
stupid file...

In the process list, the only thing runnig are things
neccesary to keep the comp running, like taskmgr.exe or
explorer.exe or svchost.exe etc etc

 

[tom]

Hi. Im having some difficulty in deleting a specific
movie file from my computer. Whenever i try to delete it,
an error message pops up and tells me that the file is
being used by another program/person, and thus cannot be
deletetd. I tried going into fail safe mode but i still
got the same message. I cant move the file to another
directory or rename it either. Any suggestions?

Try renaming the file. Then delete.

 

[Maureen Goldman]

Hi. Im having some difficulty in deleting a specific
movie file from my computer. Whenever i try to delete it,
an error message pops up and tells me that the file is
being used by another program/person, and thus cannot be
deletetd. I tried going into fail safe mode but i still
got the same message. I cant move the file to another
directory or rename it either. Any suggestions?

Kelly has instructions for removing avi files in her a-z area (A).

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm

 

[Alex Nichol]

Hi. Im having some difficulty in deleting a specific
movie file from my computer. Whenever i try to delete it,
an error message pops up and tells me that the file is
being used by another program/person, and thus cannot be
deletetd.

If this is an AVI file it is because Explorer goes looking into the
files when you open a folder, to look for the extra info about
Properties - like resolution, frame rate, etc. And gets in a loop, so
the program that is using the file is the very Explorer you are trying
to delete with. It seems to happen particularly if the DivX codec
(that came out after XP) has been used.

A way to handle it is to r-click in the Task bar and take Task Manager..
Also have All Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt open, and use the
CD command in it to get to the folder containing the file. Then in Task
Manager, Processes, highlight explorer.exe and End Task. All the
desktop will vanish, leaving those two windows - in the Command prompt
one use DEL to delete the file(s), then in Task manager take File -
NewTask (Run) and run explorer.exe to bring the desktop back. A tedious
process.

It may be best for people with a lot of these files to do without the
extra property info - Start - run - regedit.exe, open to

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler

highlight that and delete it