[Jake]

I have some MP4 files I created. They are on the internal hard drive and on an SD card. For some reason I can't delete or rename the files. It says they are in use. I have rebooted and the same thing. There is nothing running that I can see. I am about to uninstall itunes as that is the associated program for MP4 files. If I remove the SD card and reinsert it ... same thing.

So what program or process is locking these? I have disabled all of the background processes I can think of. Still nothing. This is very annoying. Something as simple as renaming a file should not take this long.

 

[hugh]

So you can't edit regardless of whether they are on the hard drive or SD card?

Have you checked the file properties on them?

 

[Jake]

Correct. The only attribute set is A. And that seems normal. These are audio only AAC files. I don't think this matters. I was trying to put some music on my son's Dsi. Of course it only accepts AAC and then it must be in an MP4 container. A lot of work let me tell you.

 

[NeilN]

I usually use Process Explorer when I have this issue: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896653

 

[Jake]

Does it tell you which process is locking a file?

 

[NeilN]

Yes, you can do a search on the file name.

 

[Danster]

When I have this problem, I run a script that is called Take Ownership. I had Adobe Acrobat files that wouldn't delete and searching Google for those words, gave me the ownership script. Very useful. All part of Windows so no spyware or virus possible.

 

[Jake]

Usually a reboot fixes this. but in this case it does not. I have managed to delete a few files. Some still refuse to delete.

 

[Danster]

Once you have the ownership power, you just right click on any folder where the bad files are and wham, they are ready to delete. I tell you, very useful.

 

[scrooloose]

Just a thought but are you able to move the files to another location?

-Mike

 

[Jake]

Well that never occurred to me, but I just tried it ... and it worked. Now I can rename and delete them in the new location.

The files were placed in the "My Music" folder. I bet there is something magical happening there. Another reason to avoid those system folders. The SD card those is a bit of a mystery though. I noticed that the autoplay is set for that drive. I disabled it but it made no difference. Anyway just glad I am able to clean the junk out. Thanks everyone.

 

[Jake]

Strike that last comment. File renaming is now locked again.

 

[Jake]

I GOT IT!!!!

Let this be a warning to Windows users. If you happen to have a double extension (i.e. music.mp4.mp4) Windows will not let you rename it or delete it in some instances. You have to use an intermediate extension (i.e. music.mp4.mp3) then rename to music.mp4 to avoid the issue I was having. The reason for the double extensions is that the software I used to convert to AAC automatically appended the MP4 extension even if it already had one.

In some instances it took 2 tries at renaming before it accepted it. Simply trimming the extra extension does not work in this case.