Deleting "undeletable" files

If you've ever tried to delete a file in Windows Explorer and received the error message that it could not delete the file/folder because it was in use, this is for you.

1. Close all open programs.
2. Open a command prompt.
3. Right-click the taskbar, and select Task Manager.
4. On the Processes tab, select Explorer.exe, and click the End Process button.
5. Minimize Task Manager, but don't close it.
6. At the command prompt, use the Delete command to remove the file, and close the command prompt.
7. In Task Manager, go to File | New Task (Run).
8. In the Create New Task dialog box, enter Explorer.exe, and click OK.
9. Close Task Manager.

Ending Explorer.exe should close every program that you have running. This will not help you delete windows files while it's running.

The other way of doing this uses a program called process explorer. It's a very handy freeware application that allows you to search for a filename to see what process is using it.

Here's what the program looks like when you open it. (My CPU usage is always 100% since I'm a part of our folding team.)

What you'll want to do is click ctrl-F which is Find handle (or file). Then after you type in the file name and hit search you'll see what processes are using that file!