{"id":1240,"date":"2014-07-15T12:46:02","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T16:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2014-07-15T12:46:02","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T16:46:02","slug":"notes-to-myself-fix-for-windows-7-cant-delete-filefolder-on-network-drive-in-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/?p=1240","title":{"rendered":"Notes To Myself: Fix for Windows 7 can&#8217;t delete file\/folder on network drive (&#8220;in use&#8221;)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Problem:<\/strong> When trying to delete or rename a folder, typically on a network drive, Windows 7 reports the action can&#8217;t be performed because a file is in use, even when you definitely don&#8217;t have any files open in that folder (or even have a subfolder displayed in another Explorer window), and haven&#8217;t for quite some time. Typical error message popup:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The action can&#8217;t be completed because the file is open in Windows Explorer. Close the file and try again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Apparently it is a longstanding bug in Windows explorer (that M$ has known about but will not fix!) where Windows creates hidden files (thumbs.db) to cache image thumbnails, but sometimes forgets to close them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Workaround:<\/strong> Disable thumbnail caching:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Run &#8216;gpedit.msc&#8217; (Click Start -> Run, type <em>gpedit.msc<\/em> in the search box and hit enter)<\/li>\n<li>Drill down to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Explorer<\/li>\n<li>Highlight &#8220;Turn off the caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files&#8221;. Right-click this entry and choose &#8216;Edit&#8217;, and then enable this setting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You probably have to reboot for this to take effect (mainly to clear any existing thumbs.db files that are already locked open). Don&#8217;t fiddle with any other gpedit settings.<\/p>\n<p>It may also help to disable thumbnails on network drives entirely \u2013 folders with images will display much faster! To do this, enable the setting named &#8220;<em>Turn off the display of thumbnails and only display icons on network drives<\/em>&#8221; in the same location. Note there are two similarly named options (one omits the &#8220;&#8230;on network drives&#8221; part), so be sure to select the one you want.<\/p>\n<p>This fix comes from a rather lengthy exchange about the bug <a href=\"http:\/\/social.technet.microsoft.com\/Forums\/windows\/en-US\/ca2cbc1a-362f-4f01-a8f8-6f05112f1915\/windows-7-bug-explorer-locks-thumbsdb-in-most-recently-viewed-folder?forum=w7itprogeneral\">on Microsoft&#8217;s forums<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Problem: When trying to delete or rename a folder, typically on a network drive, Windows 7 reports the action can&#8217;t be performed because a file is in use, even when you definitely don&#8217;t have any files open in that folder (or even have a subfolder displayed in another Explorer window), and haven&#8217;t for quite some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1244,"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tim.cexx.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}