Sorry to clutter things up but I can't find the post that was here regarding dnj's inability to view or delete a ".png" format file

As I think I now understand the problem I'd better pass on the news. DOnny e-mailed me the file but I screwed up trying to reply and lost his original e-mail so I couldn't reply directly at all! (doh!)

The problem: Downloaded a ".png" file to the PC which then is impossible to view or delete.

The explanation:
You can't view it because I believe the file is corrupt.

Because it's corrupt the process used to get file information is locking up. This is a background process which maintains a link to the file.

Because the background process has locked up you can't delete the file because "this file is in use by another process"

Here's the spooky bit. Just trying to delete the file from Explorer makes Explorer look at the file to gain some details about it. This is enough to cause the lockup of the background process and cause the error message!

So you cannot ever delete the file using explorer

This explains the solution that was used at the time (open the file using notepad, delete all the data, save it) because this would stop the file contents causing a lockup.

This also explains why I could delete the original file from the command prompt - so long as I didnt attempt to look at the file using explorer first!

Hope this makes sense!

Makes sense....but there should be a straight forward way to get rid of unwanted files. Thanks for the info.
Terry

The straightforward way is "select folder / files in explorer and press the delete key" - it was the corruption within this specific file that was the problem!

Whatever the method to delete the file thanx so much for your great help and effort. I really appreciate it.

take care

Donny



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