Loretta uses Excel 2003 to create a series of worksheets each week. She saves a selected area of the worksheets as Web pages, and then e-mails them as attachments to employees. A few months ago she saved an entire worksheet as a Web page, instead of just a selected area. Now she can't delete or rename the Web page file; when she tries, she gets an error messages from Windows saying that the file is in use by another person or program.
It is difficult to nail down exactly what the problem may be, but it sounds like more of a Windows problem than an Excel problem. There are a few things you can try.
First, make sure that Excel is shut down. (It could be Excel itself that is preventing Windows from deleting the file.) Try to do the deletion again, and if it doesn't work then try to do it in a command prompt window. (Open one using Start | All Programs | Accessories | Command Prompt.) You will have to navigate using DOS commands to locate the file, but you can then try to delete it in the window.
You should also try deleting the file immediately after rebooting your computer. This should clear any other programs from memory, allowing you to make the deletion. (Although, I suspect that since you first ran into this problem a couple of months ago, there have been multiple times you have restarted your computer since then.)
It is also possible that the problem could be related to the file being accessed by someone over your network. To find out, shut down your system, unplug your network/Internet cable, and restart the system. Then try to delete the file.
Finally, you can choose to boot your computer into Safe Mode and then delete the file. You get into Safe Mode by pressing F8 when your computer is first booting, and then choosing Safe Mode from the boot menu that is displayed.
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2014-07-26 14:55:14
I have saved entire workbooks as Web Pages on several occasions and had no trouble deleting them. In the text you say that Loretta then emails them as attachments which is another function. My question here is why not just send then as e-mail attachments without saving it as a Web page? Or is there an advantage to that? Just curious about that extra step.
Using send to will give you the ability to send as an attachment directly from the spreadsheet.
Dave
2014-07-26 09:54:55
JMJ
Unlocker is a (free) nifty utility to delete files locked by other applications
http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/
Hope this helps
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