IT Tips! How-To Delete a File in Use

*When doing this, be conscious of the effect this may have on the users, especially while dealing with executable files.*

I was requested to delete a file by our developer, Jason the other day and had no way of finding out who was using the file(We use Terminal Services). I tried a forced deletion of the file. To do this, you will need to open the command prompt.

• Log into the terminal server where the file is located with administrator credentials.
• Click on the "Start" button and type in "cmd."
• The command prompt executable should appear. Click on it to run.
• Before going any further, you should find out where the file is located. Write down the full directory path.
• In the command prompt, enter "cd c:/full/directory/path/of/file"
• Type in "dir" and hit enter to confirm you are in the correct directory.
• To delete the file in use, type "del fileinuse.exe"
• The file will be forcefully deleted and disappear from the directory.