Can't delete these files! XP tells me they are being used by another program...

Lately, I haven't been able to delete certain files (mostly Photoshop PSD files). Each time I choose to delete them, XP tells me they are being used by another program. No other program is open (including Photoshop). I have restarted the computer a million times and the first thing I do is try to delete the files, and I keep getting the same message. Not only that, but I can't move them anywhere else either. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

- Omar

 

you might try renaming them to another name then deleting them that works sometimes for me here. if that doesn't work then you might need to run the free online virus scan at http://housecall.trendmicro.com
that one picks up somethings that other virus scanners don't pick up at times. hope this helps

 

You might do a little investigating. It's possible that some part of your app starts at boot.

Download this app (Process Explorer):
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

Click the Search binoculars and type the name of one of the problem files. It will show the handles. This will tell us what app is keeping these files busy.

When you click on one of the found processes, its handle is displayed in the lower frame. You can then right-click this and terminate the association between the program and the file. This may allow you to delete it, but will give useful information anyway.

 

If you're trying to delete them by opening "My Computer" and browsing to their location, you are probably getting a small thumbnail of the file in the left pane. In that case, the file is, indeed, "in use by another program "...whatever Windows uses to create that thumbnail and to index everything in that folder. If there are a lot of large files in that folder and/or one or more are the least bit corrupted, Windows will try forever to index them.

First, try to this: open My Computer, go to View>Explorer Bar and click on Folders, which should eliminate the thumbnail. Then try deleting the files.

If that doesn't work, to bypass the indexing, open the program in which the files were created, go to File>Open, select the files you want to delete in that window and see if they will delete.