Delete a Persistent or Undeletable File

Many times it happens that you want to delete a file, but Windows simply wouldn’t allow you to delete it. These things happen to most of us all the time, especially when we try to get our computers clean of malware files and unwanted application files. The main reason behind this is that the system sometimes locks files that are in use, effectively preventing you from deleting them. There are certain ways by which you can delete those persistent and undeletable files.




Few easy solutions to delete those undeletable files are :

Using Command Prompt

To delete a file using Command prompt just follow the following steps:

1. Click on Start Button and open Run.
3. Type cmd in Run Window.
3. To move into a directory type: cd c:\*** where stars represent path to your folder where file is located. For example if you file is in folder scream type cd c:\scream.
4. If you cannot access the folder because its name has spaces for example Program Files, in that case type first 6 letters of folder and then put a ~ and then 1 without spaces. Example: cd c:\progra~1\scream~1
5. Once you are in the folder where file which you want to delete is present, type in dir and all files and folders list will be displayed.
6. Now to delete the file type in del abc.txt, and if the file name has spaces you would use the 1st 6 letters followed by a ~ and then 1 without any space. Make sure to type in the correct extension.

Using Command Prompt and Task Manager

If you are still unable to delete file by using just command prompt then try this method out.

1.Open a Command Prompt window and leave it open.
2.Click Start, Run and enter taskmgr.exe.
3.Go to the Processes tab and End Process Explorer.exe. Leave Task Manager open.
4.Go back to the Command Prompt window and change to the directory where undeletable file is located. At the command prompt type DEL <filename> where <filename> is the file you wish to delete.
5.Go back to Task Manager, click File, New Task and enter explorer.exe to restart the GUI shell.

Using Notepad

If both of the above methods failed, then try this method out.

1.Open Notepad
2.Click File and choose Save As option.
3.Locate the folder where your undeletable file is present and choose All files from the file type box
4. Click once on the file u want to delete so its name appears in the filename box and put a ” (double quotes) at the start and end of the filename. ( filename should have the extension of the undeletable file so it will overwrite it)
5. Click save and overwrite the existing file.

Now you can delete it the file normally.