So i deleted a file from my desktop and instead of disappearing it decided instead to become an un-removable, 0 Kilobyte, blank icon. The only information i could still access about this file was its file name. I have encountered this problem before and think i sort of waited it out and after a while the icon disappeared.
When i tried to delete the file i got an error message:
“Could not find this item… This is no longer located in C:\users….
Verify the item’s location and try again.”
However i am quite “Anal” about howi keep my desktop and this time i was determined not to have it floating around cluttering up my shizzle.
Thing that didn’t work
- Re-naming then deleting
- Opening in a text editor and trying to add contents, then deleting
- Making a new file with exactly the same name and extension, restarting then deleting. (It actually allowed another file of the same name to be created in the same directory WTF?)
- Deleting through an admin dos prompt. FAIL
- Locating the exact place the file was stored on my HD and taking a particularly strong fridge magnet to it…..(DO NOT TRY THIS LOL)
After half an hour trawling forums and ignoring half a dozen retarded “Have you used a spyware remover?” and “Have you got an anti-virus?” (I am sure some forum posters have those answer on auto-reply to every issue) i found a half decent post which seemed to have resonable solution involving re-indexing.
The idea was that windows had failed to remove the reference to the file in its index which seemed resonable.
To be fair i was warned “re-indexing may take a very long time” …… after about an hour of waiting for stupid re-indexing(which may actually take care of the problem) i stumbled upon
The Solution
I remembered i didn’t wait futily for it to disappear last time i found…
Which is freeware…. however you can donate money! This program deleted the $h1t out of my stupid un-removable, previously deleted file. Watch out for e-bay adverts or some such rubbish during the install of this program. I haven’t yet found a succesfull forum thread solving this issue so i thought i would share……
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To solve, follow these steps:
1. Open up a command prompt (run cmd.exe from the Start Menu).
2. Navigate to the folder that the object resides in.
3. Run “dir /a /x /p” to display the contents of the folder, including hidden files (/a) and 8.3 filenames (/x).
4. Find the 8.3 filename of the object to the left of the regular, long filename.
5. Run “ren ” to rename the object, “del ” to delete it if it’s a file and “rd /s ” to delete it if it’s a folder.
Note: If renaming to a long filename, make sure to enclose the long filename in quotations. If that fails, temporarily rename it to an 8.3 name and then rename it to what you want outside of the command prompt.
http://www.netfresco.com/tech/item-not-found/
I have seen this offered as a solution before.
When i tried this, the file i was looking to delete did not appear in the folder despite including hidden files etc.
It seems that the file literally does not exist and the icon still appearing is some other problem.
I have since upgraded to Windows Vista and so do not have this issue anymore however at the time the file deleter i have offfered a link to was the quickest, easiest and way to solve this issue.