VERY WEIRD: File won't Delete!?

Okay, I have XP, and I have tried about ten things to delete a file thats stuck on my computer. Let me give you a little background information, then the specifics.

I was downloading a video game demo (tribes vengeance multiplayer demo) and I was using Download Accelerator Plus as a download agent from sierra's website. The began to download, but it was way to slow for my tastes, so I switched to another site. I cancelled the download and redownloaded the whole thing from File Shack. When it went to save it to my desktop after downloading it to its temp folder, it couldn't because somehow the other download I stopped had 'completed' at 0 bytes.

I tried to delete the file off of the desktop and it gave me this error.
"Error Deleting File or Folder "
Cannot delete tribesv_mpdemo_en: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.

So, I opened up a wiping utility that I use, BCWipe, and attempted to wipe the file off the computer by ignoring the warning. That ended up not working and just made the file hidden.

My next step was to stop all processes except those that are critical to the system, and still the same error. I deleted DAP, restarted the PC and tried again (wiping and regular) and it still had the same error. I tried to eliminate all the processes and it still didn't work. My next plan of attack was restarting my PC in Safe Mode, which I did. Unfortunately, I even got the same error in safe mode!!

Finally, as an act of desperation, i open notepad, and saved the file as 'tribesv_spdemo_en.exe' in my C: drive. I thought that maybe it would overwrite the other one that was on my desktop and then I could delete that one as well. Well.... needless to say... it didn't work. Instead, the one I created in the C:\ directory ALSO won't delete and is just sitting there. Is there a shell command or something that will help me out or what? I'm totally lost! I asked my COMP engineering friend, and he said using DOS should be able to elminate it, but this is XP and I don't know where to download DOS or how to run it to eliminate the file (now files).

Any help would be great... more ideas.... input... whatever. Thanks

 

Hello SSN,

Welcome to the forum.

You mentioned trying a great many things, did you try deleting in Safe Mode?

On bootup, hit the F8 or F5 key.

 

Also try deleting all your TIF's. If still no joy, get MoveOnBoot which is a nifty Freeware that handles files like this pretty well.

 

hm

yea, i tried deleting in safe mode. It did not work. I think I mentioned that, but if not, here it is. Btw, how would I delete my TIF's? I'm currently getting that MoveonBoot program, but I have to go out, so i'll try it in a few.

 

sweet. that download deleted it, thanks a million

 

Thanks for letting us know!

 

This bit of cleanup certainly needs to be done from time to time. I do it at least once a week.

Open your browser, click on Tools, on Internet Options, and click the button under the Temporary Internet Files section to get rid of them from your user account.

 

This has been a problem with my two installations of XP-SP1. You need not boot in safe mode. Just note the file, and delete it after your next reboot. It seems to happen to me after burning files to CD.

 

Unfortunately that doesn't work in other situations. In your case the burner software is poorly written and maintaining a lock on the file even though it has finished copying it. Many times the "locking" software is not apparent nor will a simple reboot "unlock" it. It seems to be different strokes for different folks.

I have compiled several methods for relief but sometimes all of them fail.