Elusive Desktop Icon

Elusive in the fact I cannot delete it, I received 2 Jpeg photos from a relative, downloaded them to desktop, 1 showed as a Jpeg thumbnail the other this icon, ( both photos displayed in Thunderbird okay ) its properties are zero bytes, system cannot find it if I try to delete it, for all intents and purposes it does not exist but its there laughing at me ....the icon is a document type icon with the right hand top corner flapped down ( if you get my drift ) its properties are zero bytes / location C: user/alan/desktop / and its just a file ....any ideas folks ? I do not want to re-install just to get shot of this thing ..many thanks for reading

Hi Alan .

What error do you get when trying to delete it?.

Hi Braddersz

No its not a system icon , and this is the "reply" I get when attempting a delete..or moving it to the trashcan or even another folder ..
Hope the attachment of a snip of the window shows...I called the 2 photos from my niece as, photo2 and photo1 when downloading them from T`bird to desktop, prior to saving them out to the pictures folder ..just the way I do it

Thanks for getting back to me ...appreciated

Have you tried rebooting your system?. It could already have been deleted and your desktop has not refreshed.
You can press F5 on the desktop to perform a refresh.

Hi Alan,

We can try deleting from command prompt,

click start, in the search box, type CMD then press enter,

A command prompt should open,

Type: DEL C:\Users\Alan\Desktop photo2

and press enter, It might ask you to confirm (Y) or (N)
Press Y and then press enter

Sir George said:

braddersz said:

Hi Alan,

We can try deleting from command prompt,

click start, in the search box, type CMD then press enter,

A command prompt should open,

Type: DEL C:\Users\Alan\Desktop photo2

and press enter, It might ask you to confirm (Y) or (N)
Press Y and then press enter

The command should be;

del C:\users\alan\"desktop photo2"
(note the quote marks around the file name)

I did a test and it worked fine for me?
Desktop is not a part of the file name, its part of the directory that holds the file.

braddersz said:

Hi Alan,

We can try deleting from command prompt,

click start, in the search box, type CMD then press enter,

A command prompt should open,

Type: DEL C:\Users\Alan\Desktop photo2

and press enter, It might ask you to confirm (Y) or (N)
Press Y and then press enter

Hi Brad
Your an ACE !!! , but first, no a reboot made no difference, a sys restore to an earlier time made no difference..BUT the command entered into the CMD prompt window did, its gone, its no more, its dead ..but the funny thing was that the command prompt returned with it saying it could not find the file, but it must have done, also 4 program shortcuts disappeared as well along with that darned ( not so ) elusive now icon ..but all is now restored ..
May I thank you most kindly for your knowledge / time and trouble..it is appreciated muchly !!

Kindest of regards

Alan

alan said:

braddersz said:

Hi Alan,

We can try deleting from command prompt,

click start, in the search box, type CMD then press enter,

A command prompt should open,

Type: DEL C:\Users\Alan\Desktop photo2

and press enter, It might ask you to confirm (Y) or (N)
Press Y and then press enter

Hi Brad
Your an ACE !!! , but first, no a reboot made no difference, a sys restore to an earlier time made no difference..BUT the command entered into the CMD prompt window did, its gone, its no more, its dead ..but the funny thing was that the command prompt returned with it saying it could not find the file, but it must have done, also 4 program shortcuts disappeared as well along with that darned ( not so ) elusive now icon ..but all is now restored ..
May I thank you most kindly for your knowledge / time and trouble..it is appreciated muchly !!

Kindest of regards

Alan

Excellent. Glad it worked.

The command will return back saying " file xxxxx Can not be found.
Thats because it's deleted it.

braddersz said:

Sir George said:

braddersz said:

Hi Alan,

We can try deleting from command prompt,

click start, in the search box, type CMD then press enter,

A command prompt should open,

Type: DEL C:\Users\Alan\Desktop photo2

and press enter, It might ask you to confirm (Y) or (N)
Press Y and then press enter

The command should be;

del C:\users\alan\"desktop photo2"
(note the quote marks around the file name)

I did a test and it worked fine for me?
Desktop is not a part of the file name, its part of the directory that holds the file.

If all else fails, try Unlocker

If it can't delete, it will give you an option to nail it at boot time.
Just download and install, it will add to context menu as an option.