David Naylor: Blog

Removing an empty exe-file from the Windows desktop

Some time back I created an empty text-file on my desktop, and renamed it .exe – all in the name of science. I simply wanted to see what would happen if I tried running it. Well obviously, nothing but an error message happened when I tried running it. But then I wasn't able to delete it. For some reason the fake .exe was blocked, or used, by some process.

After doing a fail-safe boot and trying again, as well as booting into Ubuntu and trying to delete it from there, I gave up.

Today I noticed the file lying there and got really annoyed by it again. (More annoyed than usual, that is.) After googling for a while I found this solution:

1. Start the command prompt, either from the programs menu or by clicking [Start] > [Run] "cmd".
2. Start the task manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
3. Shut down explorer.exe from the "Processes" tab.
4. In the command-line, type (something like) the following two lines:
   cd c:\documents and settings\david naylor\desktop\
   del filename

A piece of cake – if you only know what to do! Actually, it's a bit embarrasing that I couldn't figure this one out by myself... :-)

Posted by David Naylor at 16:56