- Delete Thumbs.db - I can't - Rename Thumbs.db to asdf - Done - Delete asdf - Donedafuk.jpg
Idk if its a toxic trait to give solutions even though no help was asked for, but I always used Sysinternals Process Explorer to find the culprit. You just search for the file that “is open” by another program, and voila, you can see what you need to kill in order to delete said file.
I haven’t had this problem on linux though.Which is what the error dialog should do for you. It does on Mac.
Kind of like dealing with your tax return
“You need to pay taxes”
“How much do I owe?”
“You need to figure that out but I already know the answer”
“Then tell me the answer and we can stop wasting time”
“No you have to guess”
“OK, I guess $100”
Two months later … “You guessed wrong, the answer is $102”
Lol the forms are prefilled when I log in, I can make adjustments as needed, but for someone simply earning a salary, they’re usually good to go as-is. Investments and other non-employment taxable income and deductions (like education, even drivers ed) are what would need manual input for an example.
I don’t know if I’d ever want to live in a counter where this is not the case.
It’s broken on purpose because the lobby for tax filing software bribes politicians. We even got as far as successfully building the while system that worked as you described and the bribers forced the government to shut it down and delete it, after all the work had been finished and paid for.
It’s really annoying. Basically, you get a W-2, which is a record from your employer about how much you earned, how much in taxes you’ve paid, etc. You load that into some software, and it walks you through the rest. The whole process takes like 30-45 min, and many software programs charge (FreeTaxUSA doesn’t, so that’s nice). And right when you think you’re done, you have to do your state tax return, which is simple, but still asks you questions.
It’s unnecessarily complicated. Here’s what my income looks like:
- regular job income
- bank account interest
- Roth conversions - basically make pretax retirement funds into posttax retirement funds
That’s it. All three report to the government, so they have all the info. The only time I’d had something the government doesn’t is if I sold something via classifieds or started a lemonade stand with my kids or something.
I hate windows with a burning passion, but if you must use it then you should install Powertoys. Among the many useful utilities is file locksmith which will not only tell you what program is holding onto a file but also allows you to close it.
Edit: Also the “Awake” feature will keep your computer from falling asleep. Pair this with Caffeine.exe from Zhorn software (free download) and it will keep you green on MS Teams. One of the other useful features is the text extractor, which will capture any written text on your screen and copy it to your clipboard.
Agreed powertoys should just be installed by default
PowerToys are basically functional tools that the Microsoft Engineers want to add but can’t due to needing to convince the Product Manager that adding said functionality will increase the bottom line.
While I tend to agree, I feel the average user would just end up shooting themself in the foot with such tools readily available.
They don’t have to be very visible to average users even if installed by default
True, could be a thing only easily accessible via command prompt…
Yeah especially because they tend to add new features and enable them by default. I dislike having to use windows, but powertoys is where actual UX and power user improvements happen, so it’s a must. But like if “auto dark mode” was turned on globally there would be people shooting their computers for being dark on their property
Yeah, back in my early pirate years as a teen, I downloaded a virus. I was able to sniff it out, and I deleted it. But after every restart the files came back. I eventually found that it had created a separate file that would run a script to check for the existence of the others, and replace them if they were ever removed. I tried to delete this file, and couldn’t; their safety measure was to have that file always be referenced by something so it was impossible to delete. File locksmith was what made it possible to remove, and tattled on what program (yet another part of the virus) was keeping it open.
Sys internals also… So many useful features for free but you have to know to install
I did this exact thing yesterday and Powertoys told me no one was using the file. Now it will just exist forever because I gave up.
Obviously I deleted powertoys after it failed to help and now all I can be is glad that this isn’t my main OS.
Also with the “always on top” powertoy feature, you can put a little Sharkle in the corner of your screen to keep you company!
Forwarding this to my shark friend, thanks!
It’s also possible to do this in the resource monitor in task manager without installing anything. I’m off Windows these days so I dont remember the particular steps.
Edit: Here are the steps:
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Press Win + R, type resmon, and press Enter. This will open Resource Monitor.
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Go to the CPU tab.
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In the Associated Handles section, use the search box to enter part of the file or folder name.
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The results will show which processes are using the file.
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You can right-click the process and select End Process if necessary (be cautious when ending processes).
particular steps
Yeah, imma install PowerToys.
I added the steps to my comment. Its fairly simple. PowerToys is great, but if you’re ever in a situation where you don’t have it and want to do this quickly, it’s good to know.
I’m snarky, but this is genuinely great information. Thanks for sharing!
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I used to teach Microsoft Access:
“Scan Database For Errors” returned 1 of 2 messages:
“No Errors Found”
“Errors Found”
Good luck!
Man, Microsoft Access got a lot of well-deserved hate, but it was a very easy way for someone who didn’t really know what they were doing to set up a relational database.
But everyone thought, “We’ll just continue to treat Excel spreadsheets like a database, that’ll be fine.”
Access fills a very specific niche that is right in between “too big for Excel” and “too small for SQL Express”.
The problem is that this window is very narrow, and after just a small amount of growth, it suddenly makes sense to migrate again to proper SQL. In my(admittedly limited) experience it was almost always better to just skip Access.
I wish there was something in between but based on SQLite.
Honestly, projects like AppSmith and Baserow are pretty good at this. Google AppSheet is by far the best implementation of this style of low-to-no-code app builders, but comes with the obvious caveat of being a Google product.
If someone managed to make an open-source solution as slick as Google’s, I’d be right on it. As it stands, all the competition that I’ve found requires a decent existing knowledge of SQL queries to run the widgets themselves.
The problem with using google instead of open source is that one day your shit suddenly has ads or ceases to exist.
I just did some digging and Grist actually seems to do most of what I need it to. There may be hope yet! It’s still not quite as slick as AppSheet, but may be a step in the right direction.
Access is one of those programs that was a game changer in its day. Desktop databases became popular in the 80’s for orgs that either couldn’t afford or didn’t need a mainframe.
All the other competing desktop database systems were slow to transition from MS-DOS to Windows and Access offered quite a few features that the others didn’t have. Microsoft included Access with Office 95 and every office version thereafter. That pretty much wiped out the rest of the competition.
Access has just outlived it’s usefulness. Better solutions exist now. Microsoft seems aware of that since they’ve done basically nothing to it since 2016. They’re probably just keeping it around for the enterprise customers who are too stubborn to migrate off it yet.
I taught both Access and Filemaker back in the day. Once people got into it they really got into it!
File Maker was amazing
I actually really liked both, but I’m a giant data nerd. LOL.
I was teaching Filemaker on 9/11. Day 1 was 9/10. Day 2:
“Ok, everyone knows what’s going on, if you need to leave, no penalty, you can come back at any time and re-take day 2 for free…”
Everyone stayed.
Meanwhile, a co-worker of mine was in the second tower teaching a class when the first tower got hit.
Word came down from the building that everyone should stay in place and he told his class quote: “Fuck that, everyone get out.”
Everyone lived. We couldn’t find out for like 2 weeks because the cell phones weren’t working.
I ran into this working with a Fortune 500 company. I came into the job with an amateur experience with PHP and SQL, saw them trading around large amounts of daily info in Excel via email and the cloud and asked, why isn’t this in a proper database? I was told it was how it’s always been done and we couldn’t change it. So I did it that way, muttering how stupid it was. A clear example of what DIDN’T have to be an email.
Yup. I work in software that is used for blueprinting/designing, and also as a sales tool. So often the specs we get when asked to implement a new tool or product are, “Here’s the Excel sheet we use. Please make sure the software outputs to this Excel template.”
Sounds like an easy win with the “No Errors Found”
Me: Hey Linux can you ________ ?
Linux: OK, I trust that you know what you’re doing. It’s on you if it breaks something.
That’s how a computer should work.
Me: I’m going to remove the boot device
Linux: lol sure thing boss
rm -rf /
You sure?
Yes.
Okeee-
Well no, that command won’t work.
You need to run:
rm -rf / --no-preserve-root
- That is distribution specific.
- I’m not just gonna post a command like that so some idiot can paste it into their terminal to see what happens.
- Ah, good to know!
- If they are running ramdom commands from the internet in a privileged terminal, then this will quickly stop them doing that.
If they are running ramdom commands from the internet in a privileged terminal, then this will quickly stop them doing that.
does this
“omg Linux is not user friendly”
- True that, I had not thought of that.
rm -rf /
Were you sure?
Ah, yes, the classic UNIX confirmation prompt.
ha ha, no you deleted the inode, the file may still be open.
Don’t worry, it’ll go away once that process is done with it.
It’s especially fun in corporate IT.
“What do you mean user: [me] already has it open? I’ve never been in this folder in life, and I just rebooted!”
Or when it says it’s open by a former employee with a disabled account.
If it’s on a network share, you also can’t rely on the normal tricks with process monitor and the like to look for locks locally.
It’s one thing I’ll praise about using office documents with OneDrive and (Azure based) Sharepoint in a well configured corporate setting: Microsoft finally caught up to Google Doc’s collaboration functionality, and it handles “merge conflicts” fairly well for other file types (add the machine name as a suffix to the file name, keep both copies, and give a big warning message).
Sometimes if it was the last folder you had open the thumbnail file is still locked by explorer. Open a different folder with stuff in it then try deleting it again.
This is why I have trust issues.
Had this exact same problem a few nights ago! I used BCUninstaller to remove msys2 and couldn’t delete the empty directory tree because some mystery program was supposedly using the empty folders.
I have to check and see if I can delete it now that I remember to do it.
Or
- “oh I know which software is blocking it”
- Can you close it?
- “Nah, I ain’t a snitch, go do it yourself”
In these situations, I use Unlocked to delete, move, rename, etc.
