Hello all, newbie here

ok here is the problem, i downloaded a .avi file which is around 700mb in size, it was downloaded through a p2p service (i know!) but i cant delete it, when i do try to delete it it says another program is using the file but it is not. My computer now also seems to be going very slowly

i have tried the following

Disk Clean Up
Norton Anti virus scan
Ad aware scan
Deleting all p2p software and anything else dodgy i can think of that might be affecting and slowing up computer

Any ideas?

Thanks
Rich

Not only do you probably have some malware/scumware still lurking out there, but some process is keeping you from accessing that file. There are utilities that allow you to view and kill rogue processes.

Download and extract the free utility PrcView from http://www.teamcti.com/pview/prcview.htm

This utility is excellent for looking at what processes are running on your system. It will show you not only processes but threads that the Task Manager often hides from you, including spyware. It also can give you details on each task and kill them, if you so wish.

Installation doesn't modify the Windows Registry, so you simply extract it to wherever you want. This is the main reason that I still prefer it to CodeStuff Starter. I find it so useful that I put a shortcut to it in my Startup folder; I run it with Windows.

You can post here the list it generates, and we'll let you know what can safely be killed.

Isn't that a known problem with XP?

Drop to a command prompt and try to delete the file.

Say it's called movie.avi in d:\download\

Click start, run... type "cmd" tap the Enter key

d:
cd download
del movie.avi

Try that.

might want to try this as well, restart your computer, then try to delete the file.

or restart in safe mode and delete it ,usually works for me .

thanks for the tips guys, i tried all the dos commands but that still didnt work, but i found another post that said i had to delete the folder the file was in and that seemed to work.

Thanks anyway

Rich

Try rebooting into safe mode, and try to delete it from there by doing right-click delete. If that does not work, try command line.

You can usually boot into safe-mode by pressing F8 when windows is about to load.

I know that you have solved the problem, but this is another way of doing it.

Peace

Download the bootable Windows environment from http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/. It creates a bootable CD that gives you a Windows environment that you can still access your drives from.

xp and 2k seem to have an odd problem with the preview
if you have a preview of things open it shows the picture or first frame of the video in the folder

this could be what’s keeping the file open
and probably why deleting the folder worked

an easy work around is just make a text file or a shortcut or something and select 2 files delete them

that way windows doesn’t launch wmp to preview the movie