Unable To delete thumbs.db

Anonymous
2013-01-21T09:48:54+00:00

Since I moved to windows 8 I have been increasingly having a problem  with deleting any thumbs.db. I do not have the files in the folder open nor did I have them open at any point prior to trying to delete the files. But I continual get the error " file is one in explorer" . I never had this problem in windows 7 and if I did have it I would simply restart.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2013-01-22T05:38:50+00:00

Hi,

From your issue description, I understand that You are not able to delete thumbs.db. Please let me know if you are not facing this issue.

Thumbs.db is created when using thumbnail preview. I would suggest you to try the following steps.

a. Press Windows + C and Type Control Panel

b. Click "Appearance and Personalization"

c. Click "Folder Options"

d. Open the "View" tab

e. Uncheck "Display file icon on thumbnails"

f. Click OK, and exit control panel. You should now be able to delete the folder and the thumbs.db file.

Hope this information is helpful and do let us know if you need further assistance with Windows in future. We will be glad to assist.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-06-16T22:38:45+00:00

    Im facing the same problem.. though there are no files in the folder. I tried your above tip but it didnt help,

    Any other way to delete the useless folders only containing thumbs.db?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-06-19T20:40:50+00:00

    If this helps anyone, I have gotten around this by restarting Explorer:

     - Open Task Manager (Windows + R and type 'taskmgr')

     - End the Explorer task (right click every Windows Explorer process and click end task)

     - Run Explorer again (click File > Run new task and type 'explorer')

    I did this after following the steps in the first answer (turning off Display file icon on thumbnails).  It didn't work after doing that but it did work after restarting Explorer.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-13T17:06:13+00:00

    Just move cursor to right upper corner than click on search and type in Folder Option and follow the rest:

    c. Click "Folder Options"

    d. Open the "View" tab

    e. Uncheck "Display file icon on thumbnails"

    f. Click OK, and exit control panel.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-20T21:39:22+00:00

    I tried this trick. Well it worked for sometimes and then again it stopped working.

    I even tried copying .jpg image files into that folder, and that too didn't work.

    I hope to see Microsoft releasing a official solution for this issue.

    Thank You

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