Windows 7 - Can't delete files that are "waiting to burn".

I burned a CD over the weekend and ever since I can't delete the two files that are in the E:/ drive. It says the files are in use by another program but nothing else is running. There is supposed to be a file that stores temp. files when burning but I only get as far as C:/users/"my user name/? I don't know where to go from there? Please help!

Hello Kaleb, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might use the tutorial below to see if they are there to be deleted. Afterwards, you should be able to delete them.

You have files waiting to be burned to disc - Stop Message

Hope this helps,
Shawn

That did it. Thank you very much.

Welcome Kaleb,
Type "shell:cd burning" without the quotes, into start menu search. See if you can delete from there.

Edit: Shawn is too quick for me.

I began searching the web for the solution to this after I tried the solution you gave. I hunted down that folder by getting the properties of the file waiting to be burned. I only have 1 cd/dvd drive as its a laptop and yet I had 2 temp folders as well. One from december of last year and a current one. The older folder only had a .ini which i deleted. the new folder had the file i couldn't delete. I tried to delete it here and much to my shagrim it did the same thing saying it was in use. I exited everything I possibly could without ending windows services and still won't let me delete it. Even more annoying, if i put the disk in the drive that i burnt that to it tells me the disks contents minus the file that is waiting which it lists before. If i take that disk to another computer its there I just can't access it on this computer as windows insists its waiting to be burned. Hows that for messed up? Bought ready to see how far I can throw a laptop as this happens with every disk I burn and takes a day or 2 to sort itself out.

Hello Arioch, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might see if you can use the free program Unlocker on the file to delete it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I figured it out. It doesn't make any sense but its microsoft so expected. When you burn files to disc it copies them to that temporary folder and burns them from there. When it tries to delete them it checks to see if they are being used. Unfortunately windows just checks the file name and not its location. Since the same file name in another folder was being used by another program I had running in the background windows wouldn't delete the one no longer in use in the temp directory. This is also why restarting did nothing since that program runs with startup. I tested this theory on my next disc and noticed something interesting. I added the files to be burned and then changed half the file names so there was only one instance of that file. After burning, they still would not delete. I closed the program using the original files and they deleted. :\ Next I'm going to try making my own copies, renaming them, then adding them to burn and see if that works. I'm also going to try doing it normal with that program not running but alas out of things to burn for the moment and I'm bound and deterimined to figure out what exactly is going on. We really shouldn't need a workaround, microsoft should make a patch to make it work like its supose to. A way to stop a file being used like dissconnecting a drive would be nice. You could then force deletion of a file no matter what.

That's great news Arioch.