Why does technology fail so hard?

[inCore]

I'm having a terrible week and I keep finding things that piss me off.

- Why, in the year 2010, am I still having trouble deleting files off my computer? I have a bunch of files that are apparently being "used by another program" and can therefore not be moved or deleted. I do not wish to boot into safe mode and then use the command prompt FOR DELETING A DAMN FILE THAT IS CLEARLY NOT BEING USED BY ANYTHING ELSE. Why do I constantly feel like I'm not in control of my computer? Why do I have to resort to third-party software, that doesn't work anyways, to 'unlock' files on my own computer? Why do these programs not support 64-Bit operating systems?

- Have the dear people on YouTube gone completely mad? There used to be a time when I could select the quality that I wanted by videos to be played at by default. Not so anymore. Back when YouTube wasn't managed by a team of IQ-relieved monkeys, it was possible to choose between three settings in your account's control panel: Always play low quality, choose depending on connection speed, always play high quality. Now, I, as a privileged member of the international web community, am grateful for the internet that I have, a 20mb connection that pales in comparison to Sweden's over-the-top instant fiberglass optical nuclear powered mega death internet, BUT IS SURE AS HELL ENOUGH TO PLAY A YOUTUBE VIDEO. There are now two settings: "always play low quality" and "always choose the best option for me based on my player size" which basically means that I no longer have any control over the videos that I watch. I have a few playlists lined up that are great for playing in the background, minimized, on my already struggling computer. Sadly, thanks to YouTube's vast arsenal of bad ideas, I suffer from ear cancer on a daily basis.

Thanks, s.

[masterg]

you could use the KillBox to delete files you have problems with. it deletes everything you type in its box. everything. accidently deleted my desktop one time and sat back and watched windows reinstall it then killbox delete it again then windows reinstall it and so on for 7 minutes til killbox gave up. was so funny and scary at the same time.

[inCore]

Thanks for the tip, but it doesn't work. It turns out Killbox managed to delete your desktop for seven minutes but my one .rar file? HA!

[fart_plume]

if your having to go into safe mode to delete a file it either is a service or it has a virus in it. Best just to go in to safe mode and delete it.

[damha]

Even safe mode might not work. If you have CCleaner or Spywareterminator, they have tools inside that can facilitate the removal of nasty files.

There is a manual way without doing that. Download Process Explorer, then click Find > Handle or DLL... do a search for your file. Click View > Show Lower Pane (dont disable it if it is enabled), navigate to the process, look for that file, right click on the file and click Close Handle.

[FreeRadical]

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

[inCore]

Even safe mode might not work. If you have CCleaner or Spywareterminator, they have tools inside that can facilitate the removal of nasty files.

There is a manual way without doing that. Download Process Explorer, then click Find > Handle or DLL... do a search for your file. Click View > Show Lower Pane (dont disable it if it is enabled), navigate to the process, look for that file, right click on the file and click Close Handle.

I found and closed four handles, explorer.exe was hogging my .rar file. Still didn't help though, no more handles can be found and I still can't delete them.

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Already tried, didn't work. Grr.

[fart_plume]

if you have another machine available to you put the drive in it and access the file from the second pc's os and delete it.

[Serpentarius]

This is my guessing, maybe is due to the security permissions.


Right-click folder > Properties > Security > Advance > Owner

Select Administrators
Tick Replace owner on subcontainers and objects
Click OK

[masterg]

if Killbox cant delete it something is seriously wrong

[Kallenator]

I have felt this before. We all have probably and it's just as annoying every time.

[Particle]

Sometimes a file will remain marked as open without anything even using it. In such cases, it is sometimes possible to resolve the problem by deleting the file in another machine or OS install. Some times you must format the disk. I had that happen on my laptop once with a 600-some megabyte data file. That was back when that mattered--it had a 20GB disk.

[damha]

Oh! Thats a different problem. You (might!) have invalid characters in your filename and windows won't even recognize it as a file because it has an invalid name :/

http://www.purgeie.com/delinv/dldelinv.htm

I think there was a free version but I have no idea what it was called.

[inCore]

After a random amount of restarts and half a million futile attempts to delete the file, Windows graciously decided to grant me permission to delete the file. I think we can add this to the list of secrets that Bill Gates is taking to the grave. Thanks to all of you for the suggestions though, I'll keep them all somewhere for when this happens next time, which is of course very soon.

[Gamekiller]

I've always heard that it's usually the user.. not the tech.

But seriously, I haven't had this issue since WinXP... odd that it's still around.

[jmg823]

I'm having a terrible week and I keep finding things that piss me off.

- Why, in the year 2010, am I still having trouble deleting files off my computer? I have a bunch of files that are apparently being "used by another program" and can therefore not be moved or deleted.

Switch to linux

Why does technology fail so hard?

technology doesnt fail, people always thinking their idea of making something better do