Can't delete items

I don't know why but on my laptop here I am unable to delete a few files. Everytime I try to I get the message that it is being used by another program. Now some of them are media files and the only program I had been using them on was windows media player. However when I ctrl+alt+del I don't have the process running. Others are various files for various programs. I've tried to delete in DOS because sometimes I can override whatever is going on there but I'm having no luck. Is there a way for me to find out which process these are tied into or some way to override that I have not found out? I have a 60gb HD and am down to about 400mb right now which isn't good. One of the main files I'm trying to delete is a video I edited. I played it in WMP to make sure it would run and after transfering it to disk I am unable to free the couple of gigs back up. It was a HD video.

Thanks
Duck

Perhaps Sysinternals PStools might help you figure out whats locking the file?

Otherwise I'd reboot to a knoppix client with NTFS access and delete the files. Google Knoppix NTFS, and you should be right on it.

Cheers, Flix

Download a program called unlocker and after installing the program, try to delete the files. It will tell you what process is using the file and unlock the file so you can delete it.

hrmm thanks for the adive guys esp bchur83! Unlocker told me the program that was still using them was explorer.exe :/ So i hit unlick and it killed explorer which opened right back up. Quick fix, or bug work around i should say. No idea on why it does that though.

explorer as you probably know is windows GUI

you may be able to end task it with the task manager then new task the cmd window to delete the files then run new task again for explorer exe. dont shut the task manager at any point.

occasonaly end tasking explorer and restarting it can recover an almost compleetly locked win2k box.

I've heard this works well. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/moveonboot.html

If I can't delete a file in Windows I usually just open up the command prompt and delete it through there.

Another program to try...

Delete Doctor
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4473

Just to expand on WeaponX6X's suggestion of deleting the file(s) from the command prompt... Close all open programs, then type taskmgr.exe in the Run box and click OK. Leave Task Manager open, and click Start | Run | Type cmd and click OK. Leave the Command Prompt window open, then go to Task Manager and click the "Processes" tab; "End Process" on "Explorer.exe". Go to the Command Prompt window and navigate to the file that you'd like to delete, and enter del <filename>. Go back to Task Manager | Click "File" | New-->Task | Enter explorer.exe to restart the GUI.

The following MSKB article may also be of some help to you...

You Cannot Delete a File or a Folder on an NTFS file system volume
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320081