Big Booger
March 6th, 2003, 11:11 AM
3) File Deletion: A "Doh" Moment
Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred-- We had the same problem on our Windows
2000 machines. Here's what was going on. You open a Windows
Explorer window because you prefer GUIs to command lines. (Yes,
you're in league with dark, satanic forces. Bear with me.)
You click on an AVI file to delete it. But it won't delete--
it's "open." Why? Is it a conspiracy? (Yes, but that's not the
problem.) Is it that the universe despises you? (No, that's
also unrelated. Besides, I like you.)
The reason the file can't be deleted is because it's open...by
the preview panel on the left side of your Windows Explorer
window!
Yep--that little Windows Media Player preview box, with the
usual Player controls underneath, has opened your file. WMP
loves opening files. It can't help itself. WMP is to media
files what Bill Gates is to money it sucks 'em up. <insert your
own joke here>.
Solution: Select some other file or close the GUI window. Open
a command ("DOS") window. Navigate to the offending file and,
as the Torah clearly states, "If thy file offends thee, pluck
it out, yea though it protesteth mightily under the GUI." (It's
in there, really, next to the TV listings for Gomorrah and
Sodom.) That is, use the erase command to drop some whoopass on
the unwanted file.
A second cause of this problem is specific to Adobe Premiere.
The 6.0 version of Premiere forgets to close files. We have to
exit the program before we can delete files.
Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, I hope this helps. --- David Schachter
Thanks, David. Indeed, this is blindlingly obvious in 2K/XP and ME,
although I admit I totally missed it. My feeble defense: I rarely use
the
preview panel. (You can disable it in a few clicks: In Windows Explorer
in 2K/XP and ME, click to Tools/Folder Options/Use Windows Classic
folders.) I've now re-enabled the preview pane on my copy of XP, so I
won't miss something like this again. 8-)
[Note to Win98 users: Win98 doesn't offer automatic previews of
selected
files, so this issue doesn't apply to you.]
In any case, now we have a whole range of possible reasons why a file
may
be undeletable--- from the in-your-face obvious reasons to fairly
obscure
ones--- and fixes for them all.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
The above is from the langa list! I knew how to go into command prompt and delete, but I never knew that the preview pane was responsible for the undeletableness of the files.
Interesting.
Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred-- We had the same problem on our Windows
2000 machines. Here's what was going on. You open a Windows
Explorer window because you prefer GUIs to command lines. (Yes,
you're in league with dark, satanic forces. Bear with me.)
You click on an AVI file to delete it. But it won't delete--
it's "open." Why? Is it a conspiracy? (Yes, but that's not the
problem.) Is it that the universe despises you? (No, that's
also unrelated. Besides, I like you.)
The reason the file can't be deleted is because it's open...by
the preview panel on the left side of your Windows Explorer
window!
Yep--that little Windows Media Player preview box, with the
usual Player controls underneath, has opened your file. WMP
loves opening files. It can't help itself. WMP is to media
files what Bill Gates is to money it sucks 'em up. <insert your
own joke here>.
Solution: Select some other file or close the GUI window. Open
a command ("DOS") window. Navigate to the offending file and,
as the Torah clearly states, "If thy file offends thee, pluck
it out, yea though it protesteth mightily under the GUI." (It's
in there, really, next to the TV listings for Gomorrah and
Sodom.) That is, use the erase command to drop some whoopass on
the unwanted file.
A second cause of this problem is specific to Adobe Premiere.
The 6.0 version of Premiere forgets to close files. We have to
exit the program before we can delete files.
Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, I hope this helps. --- David Schachter
Thanks, David. Indeed, this is blindlingly obvious in 2K/XP and ME,
although I admit I totally missed it. My feeble defense: I rarely use
the
preview panel. (You can disable it in a few clicks: In Windows Explorer
in 2K/XP and ME, click to Tools/Folder Options/Use Windows Classic
folders.) I've now re-enabled the preview pane on my copy of XP, so I
won't miss something like this again. 8-)
[Note to Win98 users: Win98 doesn't offer automatic previews of
selected
files, so this issue doesn't apply to you.]
In any case, now we have a whole range of possible reasons why a file
may
be undeletable--- from the in-your-face obvious reasons to fairly
obscure
ones--- and fixes for them all.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in!
The above is from the langa list! I knew how to go into command prompt and delete, but I never knew that the preview pane was responsible for the undeletableness of the files.
Interesting.