Do you have trouble renaming/deleting large avi files in XP, I think I have a fix.

[Hulk]

Windows XP previews files when you click on them in file manager. Unfortunately, for large files this process take a long time, and XP will sometimes not "let go" of the file, making deleting and/or renaming of the file impossible.

This happens a lot when using avi_io. I contacted Markus Zingg and he has no solution for the problem.

This got me to thinking that there must be a way to turn off the file preview in XP. There is and here it is. This worked for me. All you lose is Explorer displaying vid file attributes. Not a big deal for me since it takes forever anyway and I know my files attributes.

1. Open up regedit
2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shel lex\PropertyHandler
3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}"

Disclaimer!!!
As with all Registry edit, BE CAREFUL! Back up your Registry in case something goes wrong.

- Mark

[DJ]

A simpler way is to turn of web view and use windows classic folders in explorer.

DJ

[Eddy]

In my experience, using classic folders won't stop XP from reading the file anyway. I use classic folders, but it still reads AVI and MPG files. It is really noticable when the file is on a network drive.

My next try would be to uninstall media player 7. But this is probably easier.

On my installation of XP, the PropertyHandler is the only shell extension that is installed, and there is no other info below .avi. So deleting the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi key should remove all the unnecessary registry entries. Leaving a PropertyHandler without default value or shellex key without subkeys is not really useful.

Mark, thanx for the tip!

Eddy.

[DJ]

Well I don't have XP but it works like a charm with win2k.

DJ

[Hulk]

I didn't know Win2000 had this problem as well. This Registry edit fixed the problem for me. In addition, sometimes when you selected one of these large *.avi's, the system would grab so much resources that a reboot would be the only way to fix it. These occurances were the ONLY time I ever rebooted, now I don't think I'll be rebooting at all!

[Eddy]

If Win2k has the same problem, maybe it's a Media Player 7 "feature" after all. DJ do you have Media Player 7 (or newer) installed?

Eddy.

[Frankie G]

I run Windows 2000 SP2 and never have seen this behavior.
But I run Media Player 6.4 and have Web View turned off.

[DJ]

I don't use media player so I have not checked the version, however if you have web view turned on in win2k, media player will always try to play an avi, wav or other compatible files as soon as you click it. In such cases the files cannot be deleted. Using classic folders and turninf off web view stops the automatic preview and so the files can be deleted.

DJ