| Many
times when trying to remove an unwanted program, especially a piece of
adware or spyware, you may run across a file that is undeletable by any
normal method. When you try to remove it you'll receive the error
message shown below telling you "access denied" and explaining the file
may be in use. You may also receive one of the following
messages. Cannot delete file: Access is denied There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use. The file is in use by another program or user. Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use. So if the file is in use, how do you delete it? I'll show you several ways of removing these types of files and even some freeware programs that help you remove these pesky undeletable files. |
Windows 95/98/ME
If you are using Windows 95, 98, or Windows ME, the easiest way to remove an undeleteable file is to boot to a DOS prompt and manually delete the file. Before you do this, you'll want to make a note of the location of the file including the entire path to it. Follow the steps below to delete these types of files.
If you already know the path to the file, please skip to Step 7- Click on Start, Find, Files and Folders
- Type the name of the undeletable file in the Named or Search For box
- Make sure the Look In box shows the correct drive letter
- Click on Find Now or Search Now and let the computer find the file
- Once
the file is
located, right-click on it and choose properties, make a note of the
file location. Usually this is something similar to
c:\windows\system32\undeleteablefilesname.exe
- Close the search box
- Locate
a boot disk for
your version of Windows, if you do not have a boot disk, follow the
steps on the link below to create an emergency boot disk.
How to Create an Emergency Boot Disk for Windows
- Shut down and restart your computer with the boot disk in your floppy drive.
- The
computer will boot to a DOS prompt that will look similar to
c:\
- Type
the following
command and press Enter to delete the filer, substituting the phrase
<path to file> with the actual path and file name you
discovered
in Step 5 above.
del <path to file>
Example:
del c:\windows\undeleteablefile.exe
- Remove the boot disk in the floppy drive and restart your computer
- The file should now be deleted.
Windows XP
Manual Method
If you already know the path to the file, please skip to Step 7
- Click on Start, Search, All Files and Folders
- Type the name of the undeletable file in the box shown
- Make sure the Look In box shows the correct drive letter
- Click Search and let the computer find the file
- Once
the file is located, right-click on it and choose properties, make a
note of the file location. Usually this is something similar to
c:\windows\system32\undeleteablefilesname.exe
- Close the search box
- Click on Start, Run, and type CMD and Press Enter to open a Command Prompt window
- Leave the Command Prompt window open, but proceed to close all other open programs
- Click on Start, Run and type TASKMGR.EXE and press Enter to start Task Manager
- Click on the Processes tab, click on the process named Explorer.exe and click on End Process.
- Minimize Task Manager but leave it open
- Go
back to the Command Prompt window and change to the directory where the
file is located. To do this, use the CD command. You can follow the
example below.
Example: to change to the Windows\System32 directory you would enter the following command and Press Enter
cd \windows\system32
- Now
use the DEL command to delete the offending file. Type DEL
<filename> where <filename> is the file you
wish to delete.
Example: del undeletable.exe
- Use ALT-TAB to go back to Task Manager
- In Task Manager, click File, New Task and enter EXPLORER.EXE to restart the Windows shell.
- Close
Task Manager
Remove on Reboot Shell Extension
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