Force the deletion of a "file in use"


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I had such an error once... after I renamed the file and rebooted, I could delete it.

Can't understand why they ignored your suggestion, always works for me as well. You can not delete a running process but as you stated you can indeed rename it. When one reboots whatever was using it for whatever reason can no longer find it after it is renamed and it can then be deleted. Good suggestion.

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Can't understand why they ignored your suggestion, always works for me as well. You can not delete a running process but as you stated you can indeed rename it. When one reboots whatever was using it for whatever reason can no longer find it after it is renamed and it can then be deleted. Good suggestion.

What? I replied to it - look above a few posts!

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actually, renaming should work...I just tried it on mine and it will let me rename it, on vista anyways

I couldn't rename it as it was 'in use'

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I couldn't rename it as it was 'in use'

That's a serious problem then... do you have an other OS installed which you could use?

If not you could try booting into Safe Mode, or you could try using the Recovery Console.

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King Mustard - Just out of interest, what did Unlocker say was using the file when you tried to delete it?

Also, here's another handy tip. Occasionally, when you have this problem, try "Cutting" the file then deleting it. Someone mentioned doing that to me years ago. It doesn't work very often but I have seen it work on a couple of occasions.

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That's a serious problem then... do you have an other OS installed which you could use?

If not you could try booting into Safe Mode, or you could try using the Recovery Console.

Read above a few posts, I fixed it by booting into a Ubuntu Live CD :)

Yes I read your post. You must of did something wrong or just didn't do it, because you can indeed rename a file that is in use.

How can I rename a file wrong? lol Christ.

King Mustard - Just out of interest, what did Unlocker say was using the file when you tried to delete it?

Also, here's another handy tip. Occasionally, when you have this problem, try "Cutting" the file then deleting it. Someone mentioned doing that to me years ago. It doesn't work very often but I have seen it work on a couple of occasions.

It said it couldn't delete it and asked if I'd want it to be deleted on system start-up. It failed to remove it when the computer was restarted.

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