Sometimes unable to delete it

What does windows do to keep control of file foresics :( ?
Well, Windows can't just throw what it is using. It is called a filelock. Basically, you don't just throw away what you are using.

You say that you can delete a file with a media player playing it? What media player is this? Is it possible that this media player caches the media stream?

You say that you can delete a file with a media player playing it? What media player is this? Is it possible that this media player caches the media stream?How Window Media Player handles this I'm not sure, but if a file is created/opened with the FILE_SHARE_DELETE setting the file can be moved, renamed and deleted and still the application will be able to see the original file (as long a it don't close the file handle.)

- petter

Consider this example, no buffering here:

#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
HANDLE hFile;

// open file
hFile = CreateFile(_T("somefile.txt"),
GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE,
FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_DELETE,
NULL,
CREATE_ALWAYS,
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL,
NULL);

// write some data to it
char pcData[256] = "This is the data.";
DWORD dwWritten;
if (!WriteFile(hFile, pcData, (DWORD) strlen(pcData), &dwWritten, NULL))
{
// failed
return 0;
}

ZeroMemory(pcData, 256);

// wait for user to delete/move/rename file
std::cout << "Delete the file (in 20 seconds)..." << std::endl;
Sleep(20000);

// seek to beginning of file
SetFilePointer(hFile, 0, 0, FILE_BEGIN);

// read the data
DWORD dwRead;
if (!ReadFile(hFile, pcData, 100, &dwRead, NULL))
{
// failed
return 0;
}

std::cout << "Read " << std::dec << dwRead << " bytes:" << std::endl;
std::cout << pcData << std::endl;

CloseHandle(hFile);

return 0;
}

This example should work just fine if someone rename/moves/deletes the file during the 'sleep'. If you rename/move the file our application will still be able to read the contents. If we attempt to delete the file then (without errors) the file will be marked for deletion, and then deleted as soon as our application is done with it.

- petter