why can’t I delete my files?

in article rIuzb.1222$, Luis ORTEGA at
wrote on 12/3/03 3:54 PM:

when I try to delete some files, I get a message saying that I can’t because they are still being used…

You are too stupid to use a computer. Give yours away.

"Luis ORTEGA" wrote in message

I have noticed a new quirk with photoshop files lately.
when I try to delete some files, I get a message saying that I can’t

because

they are still being used by another program. This isn’t so, but I can’t figure out why this is happening.
The only way to delete such files is by starting in safe mode with the c prompt and doing an old command line delete.
Even then, on one occasion, the system kept saying that it couldn’t find

the

file I was trying to delete, yet I could see it in the directory list. Can anyone please advise on what could be happening?
I run win xp, and it has happened on more than one machine. thanks

This problem is most often caused by the program that displays icons and thumbnails for Photoshop files in Windows Exploder. In a standard install, this program is
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell\psicon.dll .
The last I heard, Adobe claimed it was a Microsoft bug and Microsoft claimed it was an Adobe bug. This bug can also prevent you from saving a file from within Photoshop.

The simplest workaround I know of is to rename psicon.dll and reboot. You should then be able to delete the files, but Windows Exploder will not display thumbnails or
special icons for them. You can then rename the file
back to psicon.dll and reboot, and things will return
to normal.

I try to avoid bugs like this by never having Photoshop
and Windows Exploder open the same directory at the
same time. It may also help to turn off thumbnail
caching in Windows.

This problem is most often caused by the program that displays icons and thumbnails for Photoshop files in Windows Exploder. In a standard install, this program is

Windows Exploder – now there’s a utility I would like to see!!! ALso if PS crashes files may be left with the bit set indicating the file is in use???

—
++Surfing in CyberSpace on the Wings of a Storm+++|
W: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tight2fit/ |
e: |
(remove NOSPAM.) |
————————————————–/

do you think that if i’ve had a photoshop crash and it has left a crash file in the temp folder that could be causing it to refuse the delete command? i will try the dll workaround that you mention and see how it goes. thanks. sometimes it wont even let me cut and paste to a different folder or rename in windows explorer or even open and rename or save as inside photoshop.

"Warren Sarle" wrote in message

"Luis ORTEGA" wrote in message

I have noticed a new quirk with photoshop files lately.
when I try to delete some files, I get a message saying that I can’t

because

they are still being used by another program. This isn’t so, but I can’t figure out why this is happening.
The only way to delete such files is by starting in safe mode with the c prompt and doing an old command line delete.
Even then, on one occasion, the system kept saying that it couldn’t find

the

file I was trying to delete, yet I could see it in the directory list. Can anyone please advise on what could be happening?
I run win xp, and it has happened on more than one machine. thanks

This problem is most often caused by the program that displays icons and thumbnails for Photoshop files in Windows Exploder. In a standard install, this program is
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell\psicon.dll .
The last I heard, Adobe claimed it was a Microsoft bug and Microsoft claimed it was an Adobe bug. This bug can also prevent you from saving a file from within Photoshop.

The simplest workaround I know of is to rename psicon.dll and reboot. You should then be able to delete the files, but Windows Exploder will not display thumbnails or
special icons for them. You can then rename the file
back to psicon.dll and reboot, and things will return
to normal.

I try to avoid bugs like this by never having Photoshop
and Windows Exploder open the same directory at the
same time. It may also help to turn off thumbnail
caching in Windows.

Luis:

This happens on my WinMe system also. It’s not a recent bug. I’m able to delete by opening the PS menu File, Open. Then, instead of opening a file, right-click on the file you want to delete and select delete from the options.

Dane

Luis ORTEGA wrote:

I have noticed a new quirk with photoshop files lately.
when I try to delete some files, I get a message saying that I can’t because they are still being used by another program. This isn’t so, but I can’t figure out why this is happening.
The only way to delete such files is by starting in safe mode with the c prompt and doing an old command line delete.
Even then, on one occasion, the system kept saying that it couldn’t find the file I was trying to delete, yet I could see it in the directory list. Can anyone please advise on what could be happening?
I run win xp, and it has happened on more than one machine. thanks

I’ve had this happen to me randomly, but not with photoshop, usually with ..mpg’s .

"Luis ORTEGA" wrote in message

I have noticed a new quirk with photoshop files lately.
when I try to delete some files, I get a message saying that I can’t

because

they are still being used by another program. This isn’t so, but I can’t figure out why this is happening.
The only way to delete such files is by starting in safe mode with the c prompt and doing an old command line delete.
Even then, on one occasion, the system kept saying that it couldn’t find

the

file I was trying to delete, yet I could see it in the directory list. Can anyone please advise on what could be happening?
I run win xp, and it has happened on more than one machine. thanks

You are too stupid to use a computer. Give yours away.

Actually it sounds like you are

This peculiar locked file problem just started today on my XP-Pro system. I suspect it has something to do with one of the Micor$oft updates. I apply them as they come in, with the most recent done this morning. (In two years, this is the first time it’s happened and it happens outside of Photoshop, too, and when no user apps are running.) Logging off and back on fixed it.

In alt.graphics.photoshop AFM wrote:

This problem is most often caused by the program that displays icons and thumbnails for Photoshop files in Windows Exploder. In a standard install, this program is

Windows Exploder – now there’s a utility I would like to see!!! ALso if PS crashes files may be left with the bit set indicating the file is in use???

Any reasonable operating system, and I think this includes Win2000 and WinXP will first note that the flag indicating a clean shutdown was not performed. It then should check the file system for such files and fix the bits.

—- Paul J. Gans

in article LaLzb.48$, frederickson at
wrote on 12/4/03 10:39 AM:

You are too stupid to use a computer. Give yours away.

Actually it sounds like you are

Actually all of you goofballs don’t know the answer to the problem and are only guessing.

at least they are trying to help, which is what these newsgroups are all about.
all that you and the other kid seem interested in is wasting peoples’ time.

"A.K.A." wrote in message

in article LaLzb.48$, frederickson at
wrote on 12/4/03 10:39 AM:

You are too stupid to use a computer. Give yours away.

Actually it sounds like you are

Actually all of you goofballs don’t know the answer to the problem and are only guessing.

You did nothing better than I did. All you are doing is crying about my message.

hahahaha.

in article o83Ab.331$, Luis ORTEGA at
wrote on 12/5/03 9:21 AM:

at least they are trying to help, which is what these newsgroups are all about.
all that you and the other kid seem interested in is wasting peoples’ time.
"A.K.A." wrote in message

in article LaLzb.48$, frederickson at
wrote on 12/4/03 10:39 AM:

You are too stupid to use a computer. Give yours away.

Actually it sounds like you are

Actually all of you goofballs don’t know the answer to the problem and are only guessing.

you’re really not too smart, are you kid?
these people were responding to my question.
is this the only way you can get attention?

"A.K.A." wrote in message

You did nothing better than I did. All you are doing is crying about my message.

hahahaha.

in article o83Ab.331$, Luis ORTEGA

at

wrote on 12/5/03 9:21 AM:

at least they are trying to help, which is what these newsgroups are all about.
all that you and the other kid seem interested in is wasting peoples’

time.

"A.K.A." wrote in message

in article LaLzb.48$, frederickson at
wrote on 12/4/03 10:39 AM:

You are too stupid to use a computer. Give yours away.

Actually it sounds like you are

Actually all of you goofballs don’t know the answer to the problem and

are

only guessing.

In article ,
"jjs" writes:

This peculiar locked file problem just started today on my XP-Pro system. I suspect it has something to do with one of the Micor$oft updates. I apply them as they come in, with the most recent done this morning. (In two years, this is the first time it’s happened and it happens outside of Photoshop, too, and when no user apps are running.) Logging off and back on fixed it.

You’re lucky to have gone two years without it happening! It’s a common problem on Windows, and there are a wide variety of causes. If you don’t have a plausible guess regarding the cause, the usual sequence of things to try is:

1) Reboot
2) Command prompt
3) Safe mode
4) Recovery console
5) win.ini (some people would move this up in the list)
6) Use a hex editor to repair the file system
7) Back up, reformat, reinstall
—

Warren S. Sarle SAS Institute Inc. The opinions expressed here SAS Campus Drive are mine and not necessarily
(919) 677-8000 Cary, NC 27513, USA those of SAS Institute.

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 20:05:45 -0000, "Luis ORTEGA" wrote:

you’re really not too smart, are you kid?
these people were responding to my question.
is this the only way you can get attention?

They get attention by peopl;e replying to them. Don’t feed the Trolls. 🙂

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, relinqui

in article hy5Ab.427$, Luis ORTEGA at
wrote on 12/5/03 12:05 PM:

you’re really not too smart, are you kid?

is this the only way you can get attention?

You’re not any smarter than he is… you replied to him, thus YOU are no better. Now me, I like giving "trolls" attention, thus I replied to you just now.

in article , Hecate at
wrote on 12/5/03 5:09 PM:

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 20:05:45 -0000, "Luis ORTEGA" wrote:

you’re really not too smart, are you kid?
these people were responding to my question.
is this the only way you can get attention?

They get attention by peopl;e replying to them. Don’t feed the Trolls.

I like feeding "trolls"… they are fun.

Just like YOU are fun.

…
In article ,
"jjs" writes:

This peculiar locked file problem just started today on my XP-Pro system. I suspect it has something to do with one of the Micor$oft updates. I apply them as they come in, with the most recent done this morning. (In two years, this is the first time it’s happened and it happens outside of Photoshop, too, and when no user apps are running.) Logging off and back on fixed it.

You’re lucky to have gone two years without it happening! It’s a common problem on Windows, and there are a wide variety of causes. If you don’t have a plausible guess regarding the cause, the usual sequence of things to try is:

1) Reboot
2) Command prompt
3) Safe mode
4) Recovery console
5) win.ini (some people would move this up in the list)
6) Use a hex editor to repair the file system
7) Back up, reformat, reinstall

Oh this is just all nonsense.

The "problem" is that two different programs can’t have the same file open for read/write operations. When you try to delete a file, it’s still open by another program. It’s the program’s fault for not closing the file handle properly. Sloppy application programming often is mistaken for sloppy OS programming, especially by those with limited knowledge of both.

Now, if you close the offending program and it still happens, you can use a utility called "Sync" which will flush your hard drive cache. You then most likely can delete the file. It can be found here

http://www.sysinternals.com/win9x/98utilities.shtml

Note that I’ve used this util on 9x, 2k and XP operating systems without a problem.

If that doesn’t work, it’s very possible that you have spyware on your machine that is opening files. You should remove the spyware, obviously, and then you’ll be able to delete the file.

There’s also a nice util out there (whose name escapes me, as I only have it loaded at home) which allows you to mark a file for delete or move the next time you boot your machine.

Can anyone please advise on what could be happening?
I run win xp, and it has happened on more than one machine. thanks

I found the "moveonboot" utility

http://www.webattack.com/get/moveonboot.html

"Larry Bud" wrote in message

Oh this is just all nonsense.

The "problem" is that two different programs can’t have the same file open for read/write operations. When you try to delete a file, it’s still open by another program. It’s the program’s fault for not closing the file handle properly. Sloppy application programming often is mistaken for sloppy OS programming, especially by those with limited knowledge of both.

Now, if you close the offending program and it still happens, you can use a utility called "Sync" which will flush your hard drive cache.

Oh this is just all nonsense.
In XP-pro you need only log out and back in to undo the deadlock.

"Larry Bud" wrote in message

(Warren Sarle) wrote in message

news:<bqr249$91q$>…

In article ,
"jjs" writes:

This peculiar locked file problem just started today on my XP-Pro

system. I

suspect it has something to do with one of the Micor$oft updates. I

apply

them as they come in, with the most recent done this morning. (In two years, this is the first time it’s happened and it happens outside of Photoshop, too, and when no user apps are running.) Logging off and

back on

fixed it.

You’re lucky to have gone two years without it happening! It’s a common problem on Windows, and there are a wide variety of causes. If you don’t have a plausible guess regarding the cause, the usual sequence of things to try is:

1) Reboot
2) Command prompt
3) Safe mode
4) Recovery console
5) win.ini (some people would move this up in the list)
6) Use a hex editor to repair the file system
7) Back up, reformat, reinstall

Oh this is just all nonsense.

The "problem" is that two different programs can’t have the same file open for read/write operations. When you try to delete a file, it’s still open by another program.

The whole point of this thread is that the file that cannot be deleted is *not* open.

It’s the program’s fault for not
closing the file handle properly. Sloppy application programming often is mistaken for sloppy OS programming, especially by those with limited knowledge of both.

I’ll let Chris Cox respond to the charge that Adobe’s programmers are sloppy.

Now, if you close the offending program and it still happens, you can use a utility called "Sync" which will flush your hard drive cache. You then most likely can delete the file. It can be found here
http://www.sysinternals.com/win9x/98utilities.shtml

You don’t need a utility to flush a hard drive cache. Among other things, rebooting flushes the cache.

Note that I’ve used this util on 9x, 2k and XP operating systems without a problem.

If that doesn’t work, it’s very possible that you have spyware on your machine that is opening files. You should remove the spyware, obviously, and then you’ll be able to delete the file.

I’ll let Chris Cox respond to the possibility that psicon.dll is spyware.

There’s also a nice util out there (whose name escapes me, as I only have it loaded at home) which allows you to mark a file for delete or move the next time you boot your machine.

You can do that with win.ini (which is on my list above).

You don’t know much about Windows, do you.

thank you for that link. i already downloaded it and will try it out tonight.
thanks again

"Larry Bud" wrote in message

Can anyone please advise on what could be happening?
I run win xp, and it has happened on more than one machine. thanks

I found the "moveonboot" utility

http://www.webattack.com/get/moveonboot.html

"jjs" …

"Larry Bud" wrote in message

Oh this is just all nonsense.

The "problem" is that two different programs can’t have the same file open for read/write operations. When you try to delete a file, it’s still open by another program. It’s the program’s fault for not closing the file handle properly. Sloppy application programming often is mistaken for sloppy OS programming, especially by those with limited knowledge of both.

Now, if you close the offending program and it still happens, you can use a utility called "Sync" which will flush your hard drive cache.

Oh this is just all nonsense.
In XP-pro you need only log out and back in to undo the deadlock.

It all depends on why the file is locked. If a resident program keeps opening the file upon boot, it will always be locked when the user logs on.

Now, if you close the offending program and it still happens, you can use a utility called "Sync" which will flush your hard drive cache. You then most likely can delete the file. It can be found here
http://www.sysinternals.com/win9x/98utilities.shtml

You don’t need a utility to flush a hard drive cache. Among other things, rebooting flushes the cache.

Running the flush takes 2 seconds. You’d rather close all your apps and reboot? I guess if you’re charging your clients by the hour… Second, by the time XP reboots, the cache will not be empty.

Note that I’ve used this util on 9x, 2k and XP operating systems without a problem.

If that doesn’t work, it’s very possible that you have spyware on your machine that is opening files. You should remove the spyware, obviously, and then you’ll be able to delete the file.

I’ll let Chris Cox respond to the possibility that psicon.dll is spyware.

I never claimed that psicon.dll is spyware. Your strawman.

There’s also a nice util out there (whose name escapes me, as I only have it loaded at home) which allows you to mark a file for delete or move the next time you boot your machine.

You can do that with win.ini (which is on my list above).

People don’t want to screw around with the win.ini file. This is a right click add-on in Explorer, and it’s automatically tagged. Again, I supposed if you’re trying to pad your bill to your client, you’ll take the long way around.

You don’t know much about Windows, do you.

More than you’ll ever know, buddy. Let me know when you’ve been programming since the Windows 3.1 days, and know 8 languages.

"jjs" …

"Larry Bud" wrote in message

Oh this is just all nonsense.

The "problem" is that two different programs can’t have the same file open for read/write operations. When you try to delete a file, it’s still open by another program. It’s the program’s fault for not closing the file handle properly. Sloppy application programming often is mistaken for sloppy OS programming, especially by those with limited knowledge of both.

Now, if you close the offending program and it still happens, you can use a utility called "Sync" which will flush your hard drive cache.

Oh this is just all nonsense.
In XP-pro you need only log out and back in to undo the deadlock.

Why do you people insist on doing things that hard way? Running the flush app takes 2 seconds, and you don’t have to close any apps.