I'm far from being a computer novice but this problem has me baffled. I love down loading and trying all  of the new programs and games I can find, mostly freebies. Sometimes they come compressed with a RAR.BZ2 extension. I use the free Zip Genius to unzip them with no problem, create a new folder, put the un-zipped files in it and move it to a different drive. The problem occurs when I try to delete the original TAR.BZ2 file. I get a message saying that the file is being used by another program but I can't find any program that is. Even re-booting or a hard shutdown has no effect. This can go on for weeks or months. Then, one day I might boot up, right click on the RAR.BZ2 file, choose delete, and it's gone. Any ideas why this happens or how I can delete these files??? This problem is REALLY driving me nuts. Thanks for any help you might be able to give me.

onemaddude

these sort of non-obvious problems can drive you mad, can't they ?

try closing your email client, AND any associated word processor (i.e. Outlook  starts Word as its html editor) since it may be that is what's keeping the file 'open'.

Open Task Manager (or better still Process Explorer) as sometimes Word will be running even when Outlook is closed and you have no documents open. and make sure it has closed.

My guess would be that ZipGenius is keeping it open.

Thanks for the answers guys. I'll try them but I don't use Outlook Express or Word and think that, if I do a "Hard" boot, these programs should let go of any hold they have on the TAR.BZ2 file.

Onemaddude

   I know nothing about ZipGenius but what I was thinking is that ZipGenius may load in the last tar.bz2 file when ZipGenius is started and so it may be doing that.  If ZipGenius is not running when you try to delete the file, then that is not the problem.

Thanks Ray! I'm going to try un-installing Zip Genius. That should tell me for sure if it is the culprit.  

onemaddude

Thanks again Ray, you were right. I un-installed Zip Genius, re-booted and was able to delete the TAR.BZ2 file with no problem. I intend to contact the Zip Genius to find out why it only happens with one type of file and so they can rework their software to solve the problem. Thanks again!!

onemaddude