I have a .avi file which I just can’t get rid of. I get that “It is being used by another person or program.” message. I have tried rebooting. Tried rebooting in Safe Mode. I just cannot get rid of this darn file!!!
Try and disable it from Sysconfig or Spybot S&D’s ‘Startup Programs’
If you can prevent it from being loaded on startup you have a fighting chance of killing it.
(1) CTRL + ALT +DEL brings up the Task Manager. Start a new task called “cmd” (the command window). Now select “explorer.exe” in the Task Manager and end the task.
(2) Using DOS commands under the command window, smite the file with either DEL or DELTREE.
(3) Go back to the Task Manager and start a new task called “explorer.exe”.
As far as the “panic” goes, not all the time is it porn. I converted a .flv file to .avi and copied it to CD-R. When I tried to delete it via explorer, I could not and had to use DOS. Since the hard drive it was on was only 14G and the file was 300M, if I had several .avi files that would not delete I may “panic” as well.
Go to My Computer–>Tools–>Folder Options
Click the View Tab
Scroll down to find “Do not cache thumbnails”
Check it if it’s not already.
Push ok.
May or may not need to restart.
File should delete just fine
Just did that. If my current set of files still won’t delete, I’ll just use good ol’ DOS. NBD. Thanks for the tip, anyway, even if you did not mean it for me.
Didn’t work? I did intend it for you because I was having the exact same problem with a video file. Same error and everything. After a bit of research on the net, it seems what’s going on is that Windows is keeping all the thumbnails in memory so it doesn’t have to recreate them everytime you browse your harddrive. Once you tell it to stop doing that, it won’t keep them in memory and thus they won’t be seen as being in use. Worked great for me.
Sorry, I thought I was clear on this—I did do as you suggested, but I have not yet converted the files (I am d/l some right now as I type this, so of course they are not yet converted). IF it does not work, I will use DOS.