Delete an Undeletable File

Upon several occasions, I came across a file that could not be deleted. Now, this is a big headache for a lot of guys (and of course gals). Even, I tried restarting the system but still the file could not be deleted. I finally thought, the message said the file is being used by another process, so what if I remove all process or if I changed to another operating system or .... (I know that's a lot of or's).

So, not to despair, I have a solution ( I know, a cliche):

• Open cmd. (It is listed here)
• Close all open programs.
• Right-click on an empty area of the Taskbar and select Start Task Manager.
• Click on Processes Tab.
• Find explorer.exe
• Right-click on it and select End Process.
• A Prompt may come up, so select the appropriate option.
• Then, using cmd go to the place where the file was.
• Type del filename to delete the file or rmdir foldername to delete the folder.
• Now, finally in Task Manager, Click on File Menu.
• Select New Task and type explorer.exe

There is another method though. If you have a live USB or CD or DVD of Linux lying around, you could use that. Here's the how-to. First boot into Linux, then delete the file. (Seriously, this is it)

If that didn't work or for that matter you don't have Linux, then simply download and install FileZilla. When you start it you see something like

Now, see that Local site bar on the left. Below that, find the file/folder you want to delete and then,  well delete it.

Let's say you have tried all of this but still you could not delete it. Man! what the hell did you put into that. Nevermind. Then finally you could try:

• Open Notepad.
• Click on File.
• Click Save As
• Locate the folder where you kept that monstrosity.
• Choose All files as the File Type.
• Click once on the file you want to delete. (Just so that you can get a name)
• Put a " (Yep! That's an apostrophe) on the start and beginning of the filename.
• Click Save.

Hey, the process is not complete. Now try Deleting the file as usual.

I hope this comes as help. If it did or did not, please comment.