Hey all, i know i've asked this before, but i can't find my old post. How do you delete a file that windows says access is denied? Theres a run command that brings up the command prompt and lets you delete files the old dos prompt way.

Try nuking explorer (the shell, not the browser). I've found that if I can't delete a file, it's usually because explorer still has a lock on it.

Well that doesn't work on either computer im working on. Im killing adware on two different ones. If you kill explorer on windows 98 well it either wants to shutdown,restart.. etc. On the windows xp computer if i kill explorer and leave task manager up I still can't delete the file.

If there is a lock on a file (such as currently running program, virus, piece of spyware... whatever) the easiest way to delete it would be to kill the associated program that is using it. If you can't do that just reboot into safe mode. Just hold ctrl when your computer is starting up, or hit F8 when it says "Starting Windows XX" depending on what version of windows you are using. If none of that works you might want to look the filename up on google and see what's going on.

By the way, under windows 9x all you need to have a functioning system is systray and explorer. Kill everything but those and give it a shot.

And umm you can get to the command prompt in windows xp by typing "cmd" in the run box. Windows 9x is "command". You can also look under accessories on the start menu, there is an icon for it...