Can't delete file - Stuck on Preparing to Recycle
I am running a week old installation of Windows 7 Ultimate on my laptop. On my desktop is a file named "12-545-C-Standard Room.dwg" that I simply cannot delete no matter what I try. The file is 400k. I am logged in to the machine with admin privileges. It is a stand-alone machine used at home. The file was originally sent to me by a trustworthy colleague in a zip file. I've had no problem deleting the zip file. I have antivirus software installed on the machine. I've rebooted the machine several times. I have started Windows minimal Safe Mode. Nothing's worked. Anytime I try to delete the file, I get stuck on the "Preparing to Recycle" dialog on the screen for hours. Attempting to rename the file or moving it results in the same endless dialog. Selecting Properties on the context menu does absolutely nothing. I've also tried deleting the file from the command line and the machine just hung there forever. I'd appreciate any ideas. This is very frustrating. Thanks.
January 11th, 2010 1:55am

I hope this link helps: http://www.purgeie.com/delinv/index.htm Or, from an answer(? Robinson Zhang) elsewhere here: Hi, Thank you for your update. I suggest you rename this file in CMD. Syntax rename [Drive:][Path] filename1 filename2 ren [Drive:][Path] filename1 filename2For more information about rename command, please click HERE.Does it work?Thanks.
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January 11th, 2010 2:59am

Attempting to rename at the command line just results in the command hanging forever (just like trying to delete from the command line). I don't believe the issue is the name. After all, copying and pasting the file results in a file with a copy of the same name. And that ciopy works just fine. Thanks though.
January 11th, 2010 3:10am

If I could list all the possible ways to delete it, I'd have letters in my sig,,, I muddle through and eventually succeed. Like, I'd run maybe chkdsk, or if it really bugged me enough, I'd shut down windows, install an NTFS-aware OS, use it to take ownership and delete, or maybe use a state-of-the-art disk manager type program to check for errors, (I had another one but memory is failing fast...oh yeah, use dir /x to find out the short name and use it to delete(or turn off UAC for now, or make sure the file has no attributes, or
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January 11th, 2010 12:57pm

Just for grins, have you checked the file's permissions? Read this for more details as you probably just need to take ownership of the file. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727008.aspxMCSE, MCSA, MCDST [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]
January 11th, 2010 1:36pm

You may try to boot in Win RE. To enter Win RE, please: 1. Restart. 2. Press F8 to enter boot menu.3. Choose “Repair your computer”. You can also boot with your installation DVD to enter Win RE. In Win RE, open Command Prompt. Then try to delete the file with commands. You will use the command “del”.Arthur Xie - MSFT
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January 11th, 2010 10:29pm

Thanks for all the suggestions. Unfortunately, attempting to delete using the short name only resulted in a hung process. None of the disk utilities I tried reported any issues with the file or the disk. And if this is a permissions issue, I can think of no way to check since trying to look at the properties of the file results in, you guessed it, a stuck process. But booting into Win RE, opening a command window and deleting the file from there worked like a charm. Thanks Arthur.
January 12th, 2010 2:01am

Just wanted to chime in on this topic. We experienced this same problem and we were able to resolve it using the Windows RE method. What's interesting is that we had trouble with an Autodesk Revit file and the original poster had trouble with an AutoCAD file so i'm wondering if this could potentially be an issue with Autodesk software running on Windows 7. Either way this solution helped us out, so thanks much.
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March 29th, 2010 9:31am

I come across this problem today , but i got another way to solve this problem , hope this can help my windows get Hung and stuck at preparing whenever i try to delete or rename the file ( a movie ) i solve it by open a program called WINRAR and right click on that file inside WINRAR and choose delete Tada! problem solve
July 11th, 2010 1:37pm

I had the same problem and managed to delete it by first selecting 'properties' and then click on 'unblock'. After that I could remove it.
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August 22nd, 2010 6:13am

I had a similar problem on my desktop. I tried tot right-click for properties, then advanced and unlclicked everything ther (allow file to be archived and indexed). After that, i could delete the file.
January 29th, 2012 4:25am

Sorry for the late pile on, but none of these worked for me... but found a solution, at least for this file I was trying to delete. Windows 7 has a feature where it will try to display a thumbnail of the file on the desktop. Well, it so happened that this file was corrupted such that Media Player wouldn't open it (said it wasn't really a WMV file... even though it played on my XP machine fine... hmmm). I also noticed that I had a continuous 24 to 25% CPU usage on something listed as dllhost.exe / COM surrogate. Checking around, this file is what is attempting to create the thumbnail of the (it thinks) corrupted WMV file. So, the solution was to: 1) Open Windows Explorer 2) Select "Organize" at top of the screen 3) Click "View" 4) Check "Always show icons, never thumbnails" Click OK, then log off Windows and re-log in. At this point I was able to delete the offending file. 5) Go back into Windows Explorer and re-enable thumbnails. No more high CPU load and all is good again.
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May 2nd, 2012 1:33pm

had the same issue as described above, did a search and found this thread. I'm not sure why the post above worked, but it worked and I was able to delete my file too. thanks dloucks!
June 8th, 2012 7:03pm

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