Deleting a file from a folder gets stuck

Question

I'm trying to delete a .zip file from my Downloads folder, but when I click on it to delete it I get this message:

And nothing happens. I let it sit for an hour and nothing is going on.

Solution

Just needed a regular reboot. I hadn't shutdown my laptop in a while and there were pending Windows updates too. This did the job.

Comments

[Frank Thomas]

try deleting it from the command line. does the file name have funny characters, or is it quite long?

[pulsejet]

Tried Shift-Delete?

[whatwhatwhat]

Looks like shift+delete also gets clogged

[Frank Thomas]

perhaps its time for a disk check. you may have a problem with the indexes or storage location of the tile.

[whatwhatwhat]

Is it safe to say that waiting for it to finish is not the solution here? Or could I try hitting delete and leaving my computer on overnight?

[BillDOe]

You might try renaming the file then deleting it. Maybe there's an invalid character in there.

[m3nda]

Happen to me today that Antivirus was accesing (and maybe uploading) files before release them and let me delete them. I disabled active protection for 5 min and worked flawlessly. Note: I was deleting bunch of files and folders. Doing the same with little amount elements didn't failed.

[user2565010]

That command doesn't restart the computer. It just shuts it down. Big difference for people who might use remote desktop. shutdown -r -t 0 restarts it.