Force Delete

Greetings,

Does anyone know of a way to 'force' a folder to delete?

I've got an older folder (one I created), it's empty, and when I try to delete it I'm told it's being used by another program (which it's not, as far as I can tell..).

There's no virus, worm, or any other type of malicious business going on... it's just kinda stuck.
I've seen this before, a few years back, and ended up installing some app.. Z Delete I think. I'm hoping I can avoid installing an app to delete this folder.

WinXp Pro all up to date.

TIA

 

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Sometimes I have to reboot when I Have problems like this.

That's all the help I can offer

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You could try booting into Safe mode and deleting it from there, however I can't suggest how useful that will turn out to be. Usually such folders are created with say an installed program, I'm guessing if the folder is refered to in an uninstall file then it's likely you won't be able to delete it without using the uninstall.

You might have to download an app which as you said you don't want to do, however once such an app is installed you could potentially do other things like clean up your install list etc.

 

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you could also try to delete it from dos.

i had a similar situation with a folder called ACTIVE_X.
i tried safe mode, command line, even dos.
nothing would delete the folder.
finally i had to reformat and reinstall to get rid of it.

 

Sure to force delete a folder....go into dos mode and in command prom. type the adress of the folder and that you wish to delete it.

delete c:\windows\mylife\universe\and\everything

 

Use an old Win98 boot disk and boot into dos, and type "deltree C:\etc"

 

A sure way to delete a folder is to take out the hardrive and apply strong magnetic force after which gently boil it at 400 Celsius degrees, to complete the recipy take a gentle swing towards the stars with the boiled hardrive, and let go to watch your hardrive soar and approach the final delete sequence...as it near the ground.

 

And, if that doesn't work, try rebooting.

 

Determine what and where in the disc the data for that folder is located, and use a precise needle to scratch the surface off.

 

Actually, are you sure you don't have some backround program running thats using those files? Try "End-It-All", I like it better than fiddling around with taskmanager.

 

Or just put black tape on the screen to cover the folder name and pretend it's been erased.

 

one can also punch the monitor at that precise location. makin sure it doesnt scroll out of the hole.

 

This happens all the time. It's quite annoying really.
It's not always due to a program or process using the file or folder. Sometimes XP just grows attached and needs a reboot to forget.
I've never had a problem deleting after a reboot though.

 

every file or folder i ever encountered could be deleted in dos.
not so with my "active_x" folder.

 

Yeah, but since you have to reboot to Dos, you might as well just reboot to XP.
You are talking about Dos from Win98, right? Or did you upgrade to XP?
If XP, the command prompt isn't really Dos, however, I've never tried opening a command prompt to delete a pesky folder. I'll try it next time it happens.

What usually happens is I say to myself, "I'll delete it next time I reboot." But, then forget and end up finding it on my drive months later.


Anyway.
There are files that can't be deleted even in Dos, the system protects certain files. Can't think of any offhand, but there are many.

Edit:
Wait. If you're talking about rebooting to Dos, then yeah, you can delete any file whatsoever. Windows doesn't have any control in full Dos.

 

i suggest safemode, it stops all nonessential programs from running.

 

winME at the time.

yes, i'm talking about creating a boot disk with winME then using that disk to boot to dos. even doing that i couldn't delete the folder.

check out this thread:
http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=54046