Cannot delete 0 b file on desktop
I am running a laptop with Windows XP Pro OS, everything is working fine except one problem. There are few files kept on my desktop from a week and are useless now. Whenever I try to delete them, I get an error saying this:
Error Deleting File or Folder
Cannot delete file: Cannot read from the source file or disk.
I checked my task manager and there are no process using these files, than why is it not able to be deleted? Please help.
re: Cannot delete 0 b file on desktop
It sounds strange if you have check Task manager and there are no process running that what could be using these files that is preventing to get deleted. Because such error occurs only when the files is in use by some program. Anyways, what you can here is download Process Explorer from here
This will help you to find out what is that using the files and preventing them to be removed. You can do this by clicking on find handle on the top of this explorer and typing the file name. if you found any program, simply kill it and now try deleting the file. It should work.
re: Cannot delete 0 b file on desktop
As you said the file is zero bytes, I think it is corrupted and unreadable hence process explorer is unable to locate it. In such case you should try booting your system to Recovery Console and running chkdsk /r. It will repair or delete the file automatically. it
Also i had once such problem and in my case i created a new file with the same name and overwrite with that undeletable file. And that helped me to delete it later. You should try this as well.
re: Cannot delete 0 b file on desktop
If you have problems like "Error cannot delete file: cannot read from source file or disk" , one of the best tools for solving this would be Long Path Tool found at LongPathTool. You can download the same by searching it on the net. Long Path Tool can simplify and probably end your problems in unlocking, managing and renaming files that appear to have a long filename.