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I'm having a problem. Be my computer hero!
Alright. I understand that getting help or advice for computer troubles isn't a typical use of the forum, and that many of you, as computer professionals, probably don't want to see any "omg help me I'm a fucking illiterate NUB!" threads here. Allow me, then, to present my problem in this way: I have run afoul of a genuine computer mystery.
That's right. And I need you, computer detectives, to don your trenchcoats and Humphrey Bogart-esque fedoras to assist me, this evening's femme fatale, in resolving this electronic enigma. Astounding rewards* await those who can crack the case!
*Offer excludes any actual forms of material or physical compensation. Rewards consist soley of (1) extreme admiration and (2) eternal, undying gratitude in the form of repeating emoticon smiley faces.
Here's the problem, super-sleuths. I am a Windows XP user. (Erm, that's a problem in itself, I know, but continue on.) Sometimes when I try to delete, rename, or move an mp3 or movie file to another folder, I get an error saying "Cannot delete/rename/move (filename): it is being used by another person or program." Now, you might say, "Fred, just close whatever program is using that file." Here's the catch: I get this message even when bittorrent, windows media player, and all of my other players are closed.
Some clues have lead me to believe Windows Media Player is indeed the culprit, however. Most notably I often can't rename song tracks or even the name of their folder after I've ripped them off a CD with WMP. The files affected are ones I have opened or tried to open with WMP. Yet a look at the Task Manager and msconfig shows that no processes connected to WMP (or even any other player) are running in the background, and none are set to load at startup. Even booting up in safe mode does not allow me to delete these files.
Interestingly enough, not every music or movie file I have is affected in the same way. Some things I rip I can rename and delete normally, yet others for no apparent reason give me problems; some anime files I can move to other folders yet not delete, while for others I can do neither.
Annoyingly enough, the Microsoft website says that Windows Media Player is a built-in part of the operating system and cannot be removed or uninstalled, so there's no way to quickly get rid of it and see if it's what's causing the problem. I did make sure it was fully updated and current though, and still no dice. Of course, it's possible WMP isn't the culprit at all, and something else is wrong with my computer and the way it handles these type of files. Is it a false lead or dead-on? That's for you to help me determine!
Please note that this is probably not a spyware problem. I have two spyware exterminators and a virus scanner, and none of these have turned up anything - not to mention that I haven't really had any spyware problems since I started using Firefox.
I'd like to avoid reformatting. While that might fix the problem, it won't tell us anything about the cause. And this is, of course, a mystery - it's not satisfying if we don't find out the truth! Also, I've been having this problem for a few months, so using system restore might be tricky, especially since I can't pinpoint a date (and of course, I don't want to lose anything I've set up or done the past few months by system restoring.)
If we're unable to solve this, dear investigators, this box is destined for the computer repair shop (hopefully as a last resort) - then eventually replaced by a hotter, possibly more Linuxy sister. I'm not sure ole Windows can cut it in this dog-eat-dog world.
Well then, any ideas? I can respond with any other details you might need, and I'll try all of your suggestions to see what works. Here's lookin' at you - good luck, gumshoes!
That's right. And I need you, computer detectives, to don your trenchcoats and Humphrey Bogart-esque fedoras to assist me, this evening's femme fatale, in resolving this electronic enigma. Astounding rewards* await those who can crack the case!
*Offer excludes any actual forms of material or physical compensation. Rewards consist soley of (1) extreme admiration and (2) eternal, undying gratitude in the form of repeating emoticon smiley faces.
Here's the problem, super-sleuths. I am a Windows XP user. (Erm, that's a problem in itself, I know, but continue on.) Sometimes when I try to delete, rename, or move an mp3 or movie file to another folder, I get an error saying "Cannot delete/rename/move (filename): it is being used by another person or program." Now, you might say, "Fred, just close whatever program is using that file." Here's the catch: I get this message even when bittorrent, windows media player, and all of my other players are closed.
Some clues have lead me to believe Windows Media Player is indeed the culprit, however. Most notably I often can't rename song tracks or even the name of their folder after I've ripped them off a CD with WMP. The files affected are ones I have opened or tried to open with WMP. Yet a look at the Task Manager and msconfig shows that no processes connected to WMP (or even any other player) are running in the background, and none are set to load at startup. Even booting up in safe mode does not allow me to delete these files.
Interestingly enough, not every music or movie file I have is affected in the same way. Some things I rip I can rename and delete normally, yet others for no apparent reason give me problems; some anime files I can move to other folders yet not delete, while for others I can do neither.
Annoyingly enough, the Microsoft website says that Windows Media Player is a built-in part of the operating system and cannot be removed or uninstalled, so there's no way to quickly get rid of it and see if it's what's causing the problem. I did make sure it was fully updated and current though, and still no dice. Of course, it's possible WMP isn't the culprit at all, and something else is wrong with my computer and the way it handles these type of files. Is it a false lead or dead-on? That's for you to help me determine!
Please note that this is probably not a spyware problem. I have two spyware exterminators and a virus scanner, and none of these have turned up anything - not to mention that I haven't really had any spyware problems since I started using Firefox.
I'd like to avoid reformatting. While that might fix the problem, it won't tell us anything about the cause. And this is, of course, a mystery - it's not satisfying if we don't find out the truth! Also, I've been having this problem for a few months, so using system restore might be tricky, especially since I can't pinpoint a date (and of course, I don't want to lose anything I've set up or done the past few months by system restoring.)
If we're unable to solve this, dear investigators, this box is destined for the computer repair shop (hopefully as a last resort) - then eventually replaced by a hotter, possibly more Linuxy sister. I'm not sure ole Windows can cut it in this dog-eat-dog world.
Well then, any ideas? I can respond with any other details you might need, and I'll try all of your suggestions to see what works. Here's lookin' at you - good luck, gumshoes!
Comments
And FYI everybody. This problem is something that cannot occur in Linux because it is intelligently designed.
Just kidding. Actually I went a little beyond that, too. One of my spyware-catching programs, Spyware X-terminator, lets you look at all your running processes and then tells you what folder/directory the application is located in. Most of the processes were instant messengers and McAffee things; nothing related to WMP or any other media player. So if there is some sort of process going that's using this file, I can't see it using Task Manager, Spyware X-terminator, or msconfig.
I have yet to try disabling EVERYTHING that starts up when I boot though - that's probably a good idea.
The solution to your problem (if my theory is correct):
-highlight the file (one click only)
-let the window load the preview (ie. for a music file, a media player control pops up or for a vid file a small screenshot of the first frame pops up)
-the time it takes to load will vary depending on your PC
-then try modifying the file (moving, renaming, deleting etc)
Interestingly enough, though, while I was looking in my folders to see the folder options just now, I tried renaming and deleting some files I'd had problems with months before, and it actually worked. I honestly don't know what caused it to work, because it didn't before (months ago), and I don't know at what point it "fixed" itself. The only major thing I've done recently was to update to the newest version of WMP today. Even so, an mp3 I just downloaded today (before updating WMP) is still giving me problems and won't let me delete or move it.
In short, I am puzzled and confused.
My problems occur mostly when the PC is very busy, especially when I have lots of BitTorrent transfers going on occupying most of the HD transfer capacity. It seemed random at first. In my case it looks like it's the Explorer preview function that causes the problem, even though I have turned off preview and use the simple list format. Note that Windows Explorer by default shows media and tag information in an info box when you move the mouse pointer over the file, so it does open media files all the time. I think this function can be turned off, but I haven't tried. If your HD and/or CPU is very busy and you glide the mouse pointer across a list of several media files, there is potential for trouble. It could be that some element in your system is unstable and silently crashes or just stops working in this process, without closing the file. Well, I'm just guessing here.
Anyway, when this problem occur on my PC, I usually solve it simply by using the context (right click) menu. The menu won't appear until explorer is finished examining the file. In extreme cases this can take up to a couple of minutes (I have a one year old P4, so it's not that slow). This method works approximately 3 out of 4 times for me, a simple logout/login solves the rest.
Have you tried deleting the files in safe mode?
I have run into something similar at work. An update to Windows Media Player causes WMP to take ownership and/or encrypt any files that have music in them. You need to first re-take ownership as the admin of the machine. Then turn off windows encryption. Also, unplug your machine from the internet and shut down that damnable windows firewall. Then move the files to a new folder. Once you do all of that, turn what ever firewall you have back on and download a working media player (Core Media player works for me).
*This post contains no meaningful content or nutrional value.*
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
This should take care of your problem.
I downloaded a free version a while back and this was just the first link that came up on Yahoo.
I bet a few bucks (or Euro's) another process is running that is interfering with it, even though it has nothing to do with wmplayer or whatever.
Also make sure you have any Norton products disabled..