Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Cannot delete file?

Mar 9, 2004 4:06AM PST

When I was trying to delete a movie file from my documents i got a error message that said (Cannot delete file: The file name you specified is invalid or too long. Specify a different filename). I also noticed that the movie file icon in my documents is kind of light compared to the other files. Is thier any way to delete this file? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re:Cannot delete file?
Mar 9, 2004 4:29AM PST

No OS mentioned so I'll just write a generic method.

Press Start Run, type in COMMAND Use CD to where the file is, and the DEL command to delete the short 8.3 named file of choice.

At least you don't need to know DOS.

Bob

- Collapse -
Re:Cannot delete file?
Mar 9, 2004 5:03AM PST

It might be necessary to boot into DOS. But first try the command window, of course.

And I don't quite see why no DOS knowledge is needed. I see cd and del mentioned, and certainly dir is needed also.
So maybe you need to find some simple MS-DOS introduction on www.google.com.

And it might be that even the 8.3 filename is invalid. Then other tricks are needed.


Kees

- Collapse -
Re:Cannot delete file?
Mar 9, 2004 7:00AM PST
- Collapse -
Re:Re:Cannot delete file?
Mar 9, 2004 3:05PM PST

Have you tried moving the file manually to your recycle bin? Perhaps you could click "start", click "search",type in the file name, and click "search". When it displays the file, try deleting it from there. If it still won't allow you to delete the file.....you may have downloaded more than just a video file. Good luck.

- Collapse -
Re:Re:Cannot delete file?
Mar 10, 2004 1:12AM PST

Thanks Larry this worked perfectly. Thanks for all your help.

- Collapse -
Re:Re:Re:Cannot delete file?
Mar 10, 2004 8:54AM PST

captaincute, Glad it worked and Thanks for posting back to let us know.

Larry

- Collapse -
''Patch/fix'' concerning .AVI files.
Mar 10, 2004 12:00AM PST

A reported fix for Windows XP not letting you delete an .avi file may be a bug that causes Explorer to read the entire contents of any broken AVI files before allowing its access and caused by the file shmedia.dll. To correct this misbehavior, remove the following registry key that prevents Explorer from loading it in response to file property queries:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREClassesCLSID{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}InProcServer32

- Collapse -
should shmedia also be deleted ?
Nov 1, 2005 6:14AM PST

Thanks for the tip. I seem to be experiencing a similar problem and was wondering if it would be helpful to also remove shmedia.dll as well as the registry key? Thanks again.

Aldous

- Collapse -
Aldous, I Suggest NOT Deleting The .dll
Nov 1, 2005 8:12AM PST

The purpose of that particular file (Media File Property Extractor Shell Extension ) is to show previews and extract information about each of media files including the .avi file extension. Deleting the file would stop that from occurring..Changing the registry entry should cause less impact than removing the file completely.

Besides, although I haven't tried it, since the file is a system file, I think System File Protection would simply replace it at the next boot...

Hope this helps.

Grif