found a shell bug

[Guest]

I have found a minor bug in the shell. Explorer.exe will LOCK old DOS-based
executables (<dos16>.exe) whenever one opens their containing folder in an
Explorer/My Computer window. I think it has something to do with the fact
that it tries to open the file to show an icon (stupid made-for-noobs
graphical OS), doesn't find icons, and then.... fails to close it? This
doesn't happen for Win32 executables. The result is that once a folder
containing a Dos16 executable is opened, the file is locked so it cannot be
deleted. Given that people generally use explorer for such file management,
it can get quite annoying.

Workarounds (to close the handle or delete the file)

1. Reboot and delete it from a command prompt / some other method

2. Close the Explorer window. Use Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com
to find and forcibly close the handle.

3. If the file is on the Desktop (particularly in the All Users\Desktop
folder), reboot in safe mode with command prompt to delete the file or move
it elsewhere.

I've tried to send this directly to Microsoft, but I can't find the old
"report a bug" page. Maybe someone here knows what to do with this info.

 

[Vanguardx]

I have found a minor bug in the shell. Explorer.exe will LOCK old
DOS-based executables (<dos16>.exe) whenever one opens their
containing folder in an Explorer/My Computer window. I think it has
something to do with the fact that it tries to open the file to show
an icon (stupid made-for-noobs graphical OS), doesn't find icons, and
then.... fails to close it? This doesn't happen for Win32
executables. The result is that once a folder containing a Dos16
executable is opened, the file is locked so it cannot be deleted.
Given that people generally use explorer for such file management, it
can get quite annoying.

Workarounds (to close the handle or delete the file)

1. Reboot and delete it from a command prompt / some other method

2. Close the Explorer window. Use Process Explorer from
www.sysinternals.com to find and forcibly close the handle.

3. If the file is on the Desktop (particularly in the All
Users\Desktop folder), reboot in safe mode with command prompt to
delete the file or move it elsewhere.

I've tried to send this directly to Microsoft, but I can't find the
old "report a bug" page. Maybe someone here knows what to do with
this info.

If explorer.exe has the file handle and won't release it then kill that
process.

- Open Task Manager.
- Kill *all* explorer.exe processes, including the one used for the
desktop GUI.
- The desktop GUI disappears.
- In Task Manager's File -> New Task menu, run explorer.exe.
- The desktop GUI reappears.
- You can now open Explorer to delete or move the file.

The system notification area will be screwed up regarding tray icons
because of the stupid way that they announce only on load and only when
they change.

Alternatively, you could configure Explorer to use a separate shell. In
Explorer under the Tools -> Folder Options -> View tab, enable the
"Launch folder windows in new process". Then first try killing the
explorer.exe that is NOT for the desktop GUI (it probably will have High
priority, another ****up of Microsoft). If that doesn't work, you're
back to the above procedure.