A stupid file is on the desktop. The stupid file remains.
You hit delete or drag it to the recycle bin.
It laughs at you, mocking you in its native tongue. "Cannot delete file. Cannot read from the source file or disk"
I want it gone. I have tried renaming it, no luck. I assigned it to a different file association, no luck. I put a booger on it, but my limitations to this reality meant that my monitor was hurt, not the file. After recouping I found strength in other people who had a similar problem.
Their answer?
Reinstall Windows.
There must be a way to kill this demon without the need to reinstall Windows.
There must be.
Toven says to refresh your desktop, because it probably is deleted and it just isn't telling you.
Restarting the computer is sometimes needed as well.
Beyond that, reinstalling windows would be pretty drastic. I'd first create another profile and browse your directory tree to your main profile's desktop folder, and delete it from there. Beyond that, there's one way to get around all of that, and that's to access that same desktop folder from another OS. DOS won't do the trick on NTFS disks, so you could "just" load up the hard disk as a secondary on another machine, and then delete it that way.
That message does suggest a restart would clear it up though.
ABF, many internets to you, sir.
Apparently, Windows has an issue that MS doesnt want to fix. To try ut for yourself, just plug in any device, put a shortcut to a file on that device on your desktop. Now remove the device. Shortcut cant be deleted.
Even if you plug in your device again, Windows just acts like its some mysterious file and refuses to delete it. My theory was that I could delete it before Windows starts its indexing service on start up, but even programs that delete on boot couldn't grab it. Next theory was DOS 'hard delete' and even that gave me problems. I had to open regedit (start>run>regedit), keyword the file and F3 and delete the obvious cancers. Then use the program that ABF mentioned.
Then I masturbated to Linux-based porn using the Safari browser, I fucking hate Windows. Eat hot lesbian kissing DEATH played on the VLC player, BILL.
I had some files I couldn't delete a few months ago (restarting did no good, nor did shutting down all unessential programs and services), and after some searching on the internet, that's the program that successfully allowed me to get rid of them. So it worked for you too? :) And I agree, it's bizarre that Microsoft doesn't have a fix for this.
In the past, you could just boot into pure DOS mode and delete it that way, because it pure DOS nothing is undeletable. But since XP, that became impossible... and Microsoft did nothing to fix the problem.