4 Ways To Get Rid Of Un-deletable Files

There are times when certain files in your computer become undeletable because of some virus or any other reason. This means that the file cannot be deleted by simply clicking the delete button. Files usually become undeletable because of an active process that has an open handle to the file which prevents it from being deleted. Under most circumstances if you close down all running programs you’ll find that most files will then be free to delete, but that’s not always the case, and in some cases it may even be a trojan or other form of malware that’s preventing itself from being deleted. Now some undeletable files may not harm your computer but usually these type of undeletable files cause problem in proper functioning of an operating system. In this post am going to give some computer help and will share with you different ways of getting rid of such stubborn files :

Method 1

1. Open command Prompt window and leave it open.
2. Close all running (active) programs.
3. Click Start > Run.
4. Key in “TASKMGR.EXE” (without quotes) in the Run window.
5. Go to the Processes tab.
6. End process Explorer.exe.
7. Leave the Task Manager open.
8. Go back to the Command Prompt window and change to the directory in which the undeletable file is located in.
9. In the command prompt type “DEL <filename>”  (without quotes) where ‘filename’ is the file you wish to delete.
10. Now go back to Task Manager.
11. Click on File > New Task.
12. Enter “EXPLORER.EXE” (without quotes) to restart the GUI shell.
13. Close Task Manager.

And thats it ! You have deleted the file safely. Visit the directory in which the undeletable file was located to verify that the file has been deleted.

Method 2

1. Open Notepad.
2. Click on File > Save As.
3. Locate the folder where the undeletable file is located.
4. Choose “All files” from the file type box.
5. Click once on the file which you wish to delete so its name appears in the “filename” box.
6. Put a ” at the start and end of the filename (it will overwrite it).
7. Click on save.
8. It will ask you to overwrite the existing file, then choose yes.

Now after doing so just locate the file and delete it as you delete any other file. The file will most probably be deleted.

Method 3

1. Click on Start > Run.
2. Type “command” in Run dialog box.
3. Go to the directory in which the undeletable file is located. [type: cd c:\xyz (xyz stand for your folder)]
4. Once you are in the folder in which the non-deletable file is. Type in “dir” (without quotes) a list will come up with every file inside.
5. Now delete the file by entering the file name.

If you cannot access the folder because it has spaces. For example, Program Files, in this case you will have to type only the first 6 letters then put a ~ and then 1 without spaces. Example: cd c:\progra~1\

An example of how to delete the file using command prompt: If your file name was temp jerry.bmp you would type once in the specific folder thorugh command, del tempje~1.bmp and your file should be gone (Make sure to type in the correct extension).

NOTE: This method may not work for all types of files especially virus files. I therefore suggest you to first use Method 1 and Method 2 first.

Method 4

If the above mentioned 3 methods fail, then just download this free utility. It will surely help you in deleting undeletable files. Moreover it’s also very useful when you have to delete virus file. This utility marks file for deletion and during next reboot. This method is based on documentation from Microsoft that describes a function called MoveFileEx.

You can download the freeware directly from their site DelLater.