Hi guys,

I just upgraded to windows 8 Beta 64 bit and i've been loving how sleek and quick it has until today...

I can't move, delete or rename a mkv video file and every time when i try to do so, a message will pops up and saying" The action cannot be completed because the file is open in windows explorer. Close the file and try again." What even weirder is that i can't delete it in the meantime, because everytime when i try to delete it, a similar message pops up saying that a file is in use in another program.

Today I have cost several hours on how to fix this win 8 headache but with no luck. I've done some searching on the Internet for solutions and have tried many ways such as use safe mode to delete it, even restart the computer but there is no any difference.

does anyone what could be causing this? if you can come up a fix for this win 8 issue would be greatly appreciated.

Hi sunyekerry,

Have you checked msconfig.exe to see if anything is starting up you do not recognize that could be related?

Try to run an antivirus program to check whether your computer has been infected ot not, if found, just remove them.


Have you tried taking ownership of it using the properties/security settings?

If you have tried all and none of them helps, download IObit Unlocker and install it on your Windows 8.

Hope this might helps.

Why not try Iobit Unlocker? it can be used to end the process of the related software to to delete and rename it. I came across this software by chance. It is a really good one.

Windows 8 doesnt seem diffrent from Windows 7 because Windows 7 has the same problem when it comes to .mkv files i hoped microsoft would have fixed this bug with windows 8 but it doesnt seem they will hopefully they fix it when the real windows 8 comes out since its not fixed in beta

I know that on Win 7, the hidden file thumbs.db has this problem, so you have to change the view from a text view (like "Details" or "List") to a picture view ("icons" - medium / large / whatever) so that it forces the thumb to update to display an actual thumbnail image, rather than just the name "thumbs.db", THEN you can delete it. A rather annoying feature / bug.

Perhaps it's the same sort of thing - does Win 8 show thumbnails of .mkv files? I suppose it's too much to hope that it actually plays them...!