We recently setup one of our users with a brand new Windows 7 computer, however she is unable to delete certain files. With some testing, I found I cannot move, rename, or view properties of these files either.
When trying to delete the file, it just sits at the "Preparing to recycle" popup, however the "from" section says "Discovering items…"
Clicking "More Details" on the popup shows me that it can't find the file name or where it's recycling from:
Other notes…
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All the affected files are .pdf files that get created via a scanner. Other pdf files are fine.
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Opening the files works fine. I can open the file, Save As a new file, and delete the new one just fine
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Trying to delete the file via command prompt just sits there
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Rebooting the computer will let me manipulate the files like normal, however this user is responsible for scanning hundreds of documents a day and I'd rather not have to tell her to reboot her computer to delete files.
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The user is part of the administrator group on the computer
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The Owner of the affected files is the user
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attribof files is justA
Best Answer
It's quite likely that the application doing the scanning to PDF hasn't quite let go of the file handles for these PDFs yet. Hence why a reboot fixes things, as the application is unloaded from memory and all file handles are lost.
Therefore it could be required to force kill the scanning application's process from Task Manager or use something like LockHunter to unlock the file manually.
If these aren't workable solutions, I'd check to make sure the PDF scanning software doesn't have an update available from the manufacturer, or that you can't use the built-in Windows scanning functionality that might be a bit more robust (but only available to JPG, I think).