Cannot delete a file

Gordon

I have 3 photoshop files that I can't erase/move/change the name of. In fact I can't even move the file that contains the 3 photoshop .psd's. When I try and delete or move the files I get a popup (see attached). It seems that the files are already open but they aren't! I am on a network but I have detached myself from it and still get the same error.

I have tried opening the files in Photoshop and editing them and saving over the wierd file but I get the other error message in the attachment.

I have restarted the PC a couple of times. I have purged any temporary files I can find. Though I can't seem to purge files from Photoshop. I have defragged (!). I have even got really angry and nothing has helped.

Any ideas on how to delete these files? (I don't need them)

Pretty please?!

Operating System: Windows XP
Version: 5.1
Photoshop 7.0

tman

have you tried starting in safe mode & deleting from there?
keep pressing F8 after the pc beeps on startup then choose safe mode.

newgrange

This might help.

http://www.forum4designers.com/message14507.html

irishgeo

try who locked me .

its a program which tells you which services or programs are locking your files.

Doesnt work on windows 98 or windows me.

Gordon

newgranges link fixed it for me, thanks to all. I'll also keep that proggy in mind irishgeo, ta.

(For the record, you have to change the psicon.dll and reboot and change it back after rebooting again. Worked a charm)

"This problem is most often caused by the program that displays
icons and thumbnails for Photoshop files in Windows Exploder.
In a standard install, this program is
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell\psicon.dll .
The last I heard, Adobe claimed it was a Microsoft bug and
Microsoft claimed it was an Adobe bug. This bug can also
prevent you from saving a file from within Photoshop.

The simplest workaround I know of is to rename psicon.dll
and reboot. You should then be able to delete the files,
but Windows Exploder will not display thumbnails or
special icons for them. You can then rename the file
back to psicon.dll and reboot, and things will return
to normal.

I try to avoid bugs like this by never having Photoshop
and Windows Exploder open the same directory at the
same time. It may also help to turn off thumbnail
caching in Windows."

to save your file, simply choose "save as" and give it a new name, then you
should be able to continue to save that new file as normal. after finishing
editing, close photoshop, delete old file, and rename new file as desired.

Cake Fiend

If it's the problem I'm thinking of, a far quicker way would be to kill the explorer process through the task manager, run a command prompt (cmd.exe), delete the file through the CLI, then re-run explorer.

bambam

A good program I use to identify which process has a file open is TaskInfo: http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=dellater

It gives lots of sys info and shows all open files by owner.


Another handy little util is DelLater. It uses the M$ approach to mark an undeletable file for deletion on Windows startup http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=dellater