iso file can’t be deleted because it is “open in system”; need to delete; how can I do it?

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I have an “iso” file left behind by Adobe Premiere Elements due to a defective disc not being usable. I want to delete this unneeded file because it is 3.8 MB in size.

I have a solid state hard disc of modest capacity so this is a significant amount of real estate.

All attempts to delete, rename, or move this file result in an error message that this action can not be taken because the file is open in the system.

How can I overcome this problem and delete the file? Is there something in the registry perhaps that can be changed?

= Ax Kramer

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I get to reply to my own question!

On looking over “This PC” which shows the various disc drives, I discovered a third DVD-ROM drive (G:) that I did not know I had.
I right clicked on it, selected “eject”, and the drive disappeared completely.

Went back to the iso file and tried to delete it. Success! No more iso file.

Hope this information helps others stuck with a similar situation.

Thanks to all of you who read my post and gave it some thought.

= Ax Kramer

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Ax Kramer, I want just to thank you for your question and answer (funny anyway). After downloading 7 times a failed Win 7… 3.10 GB, my HDD was full and I had to delete those files. I tried so may times, unsuccessfully. I restarted my pc, nothing. And then, lucky I was by going on GOOGLE, typing ” How to delete ISO files from system ?’, I saw your question, then your answer, I smiled and went back to the drives and I saw 7 K drives. I ejected one by one and went back to my desktop and easily deleted them. Thank you very much for saving 21 GB of my disk. I registered just to say thank you.

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Ax Kramer, I want just to thank you for your question and answer (funny anyway). After downloading 7 times a failed Win 7… 3.10 GB, my HDD was full and I had to delete those files. I tried so may times, unsuccessfully. I restarted my pc, nothing. And then, lucky I was by going on GOOGLE, typing ” How to delete ISO files from system ?’, I saw your question, then your answer, I smiled and went back to the drives and I saw 7 K drives. I ejected one by one and went back to my desktop and easily deleted them. Thank you very much for saving 21 GB of my disk. I registered just to say thank you.

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You can mount an ISO file as a CD in Windows 8 – at last. It stays mounted until you eject / unmount.

cheers, Paul

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Paul, what is the advantage of mounting iso file? I’ve never had my Windows 7 do that.

"Take care of thy backups and thy restores shall take care of thee." Ben Franklin, revisted

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You may have a backup of an important CD / DVD in ISO form. If you mount it you can extract files. You can also mount an ISO in a Virtual Machines and boot from it – great for testing your CD backup.

cheers, Paul

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Paul:

Thank you for your suggestion about mounting the file.

Actually I tried that, but Win 8.1 would not let me mount the file, or do anything else to it.

I’ll guess now that the reason was that Windows “knew” the file was already mounted on drive G, (a drive that did not exist physically)
and so saw no reason to mount the file again.

Ejecting the non-existent file from the non-existent drive, which “properties” showed to be empty (zero bytes), caused drive to disappear.

By the way, I mistyped the file size…. it was 3.8 GB, not MB sized. That GB was why the monster file had to go.

= Ax Kramer

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I thought you meant 3.8GB.

cheers, Paul

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The capability to mount an ISO by double-clicking it is a new feature of Win 8.x (it’s also present in Win 10). In previous versions of Windows a 3rd party utility like DaemonTools, PowerISO or VirtualCloneDrive was required.

As the OP discovered, you right-click and select “eject” to dismount it.

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The capability to mount an ISO by double-clicking it is a new feature of Win 8.x (it’s also present in Win 10). In previous versions of Windows a 3rd party utility like DaemonTools, PowerISO or VirtualCloneDrive was required.

As the OP discovered, you right-click and select “eject” to dismount it.

Indeed. Windows 7 added the capability to burn .iso files to CD/DVD from the context menu and Windows 8 added the mount capability.

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