The VideoLAN Forums

I have a wierd problem thats pretty straight forward. whenever I transcode a file using VLC, like if I took a file and transcoded the movie video to h264 and audio to mp3, i cannot delete the file that comes out of VLC Media Player. I get the usual Windows Error Message saying the file is in use. so I tried uninstalling VLC then trying to delete the files and no dice. any ideas?

You are using Vista? If so, you have tried to remove those file with admin rights? If not Vista, have you tried restarting or using tool called unlocker (which can also detect which process is locking the file)?

Uninstalling VLC won't help. This is a common, VERY common bug in Windows. It has something to do with the OS still thinking that your file is being edited. So its not VLC's fault. What I ended up doing was restarting windows. Then I ditched windows itself. But I doubt you can do that so stick with restarting.

nah I have XP and vista on a dual boot. I do all transcoding on XP so maybe if I went over to vista and tried to delete the files... they would delete >_>. and I already tried restarting my PC . ill try this and reply back soon

Vista stikes again - Windows 7 has more surprises up its sleeve. All our 237 computers have been "upgraded" to XP Pro from Vista.
Back to topic....
Firstly do you have Windows Commander?
Assuming you have, locate the file within that and delete from there. Works every time.
There are some files, not just videos, that will display this "file in use" message as soon as you highlight it.
Usually these are large files that for some reason take initial selection as a command to open!
If you don't have Windows Commander then get it ASAP.

Hint: on Windows Commander set your Preferences to "show hidden files (for experts only)" and you'll be pleasantly surprised what you will find.