Can not rename files on C drive in Windows explorer

[creid145]

When I try to rename a file or folder in windows explorer nothing happens then I hear the dreaded failure ding.

I have no problem renaming files and folders on my external E drive just on the C drive.

 

[Ztruker]

What file and/or folder are you trying to rename. If it's System owned then it's protected and made hard to delete on purpose to prevent messing up the OS.

 

[creid145]

What file and/or folder are you trying to rename. If it's System owned then it's protected and made hard to delete on purpose to prevent messing up the OS.

I am only trying to rename files and folders for a project I am working on. Nothing to do with system files or anything like that.

 

[Ztruker]

Can you provide the complete path to the folder or files?

 

[Bernardus]

Maybe permissions?
There is also a tool unlocker.
Seems that the permissions prevent you to change things.
That is related to your account. R click on a file and read the permissions. Properties security.
If your not the administrator your account may be restricted.

 

[BisVal]

Open the file through the program that created it and try to rename with Save as/

 

[apb]

I have the same problem, and it is not a simple security problem. I am a member of admin group, and these are files I created. I have tried taking ownership recursively, changing read-only recursively, and giving authenticated users full control recursively. None of it works. In fact in a directory which has this problem, if I use explorer to create a new folder, it creates a folder named 'New Folder' and immediately dings and disallows renaming or deleting that folder.

I am, however, able to effortlessly do this with an external program.

I believe the source of this problem is that these files were copied in, a whole directory at a time, from an external machine. I think files that arrived this way have some special lock that I do not know how to reset. I.e., these are files from "untrusted source." Any ideas?

edit: I should add that on the machine these came from, there was no such problem, so it is unrelated to the path.

Thanks. --peter

 

[apb]

Solved -- explorer bug

Ok, I solved the problem.

Apparently it's a bug in explorer, or maybe a bit got flipped. I killed all running explorer processes, and restarted explorer, and the problem went away. That means it would also go away on reboot, presumably.

I didn't think I had previously had this problem, so I began to suspect explorer. Explorer is really a POS. It should at the very least not just "ding" without telling you why, not to mention many other shortcomings.

 

[mrjimphelps]

Did you kill "explore" or "explorer"? "Explore" is the Windows 7 interface, not the file manager.

 

[apb]

I don't know what the process "explore" is, nor is there a process of that name on my win 7 machine. As far as I know, "explorer" in windows since at least xp is BOTH the file manager AND the desktop interface and window manager. ...A stupid design decision, imho, but that's how MS has chosen to do it. I also don't know what "Windows 7 interface" means. Maybe you mean the desktop UI, but I believe that's "explorer."

In any case, as I said, I killed all instances of "explorer," no more, no less.

--p.

 

[mrjimphelps]

The desktop UI. And it is "explore", not "explorer". Try killing "explore" in Task Manager, and you'll see everything disappear.

 

[apb]

As I stated before, there is no "explore" running on my system, and hence no such thing appears in task manager. If, however, I kill all running "explorer"s, the desktop will go blank until I run "explorer.exe" again.

 

[Bernardus]

There is however a proces explorer.exe in the windows folder.

 

[RoWin7]

Download Unlocker, which will do it next time in less time. It works in the rt-click menu.