[Ogden]

Hey everybody!! Somehow (I don't know how!) I wound up with a document on my desktop entitled "trueblue.exe". When I try to drag it to the trash, I get an error message that it is "being used by another task right now and cannot be moved to the trash. Please try again when task is complete". It also won't copy or duplicate into another folder - as if it is being shared by another computer, except that there is nobody connected to me. Weird!!!

What the hell is this thing? Can someone offer me some help, short of a clean install of OS X?

Much appreciated.
Ogden

[Scifience]

I'm sure you've tried this, but restart the computer and try deleting again. If that doesn't work, open the Terminal, switch to the directory the offending file is in, and type:

sudo rm ./trueblue.exe

That should make it disappear.

[hudson1]

Have you tried logging out and back in and then trashing the file? Alternately, have you logged in as Root and tried trashing the file?

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by Scifience:
I'm sure you've tried this, but restart the computer and try deleting again. If that doesn't work, open the Terminal, switch to the directory the offending file is in, and type:

sudo rm ./trueblue.exe

That should make it disappear.

To get to your desktop easily in the terminal, type 'cd ' (notice the space at the end), and then drag your Desktop folder into the terminal window (found in users/your_username/).
Or you could type

cd /users/your_username/Desktop

same thing. Just replace 'your_username' with your own username.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
To get to your desktop easily in the terminal, type 'cd ' (notice the space at the end), and then drag your Desktop folder into the terminal window (found in users/your_username/).
Or you could type

cd /users/your_username/Desktop

same thing. Just replace 'your_username' with your own username.

Or, just do it the easy way and type:

cd ~/Desktop

[Ogden]

Okay. You guys are talking to someone who has just switched over from 9.2. I found the Terminal app. Now what do I do? Typing in the things that were suggested got me to the desktop, but after that I got the "you don't have permission" error. Its almost as if this .exe file is owned by someone who is connected to my computer and I don't have the access to get rid of it.

HELP!!!!

[Ogden]

I can get on the Terminal and onto my desktop through it. When I type "sudo rm,/trueblue.exe". it asks me for my password. Then when I give my password it says, "sudo rm./trueblue.exe command not found".

This bites!!

Thanks,
Ogden

[MasonMcD]

the command is sudo rm trueblue.exe with no commas or periods or slashes, so long as you have navigated to the file in the directory structure.

Before you do this, you may need to enable root. Instructions are here.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Ogden:
I can get on the Terminal and onto my desktop through it. When I type "sudo rm,/trueblue.exe". it asks me for my password. Then when I give my password it says, "sudo rm./trueblue.exe command not found".

This bites!!

Thanks,
Ogden

That wouldn't have worked without cd'ing to the desktop first anyway. In addition, it's generally a bad idea to execute an rm command with a slash in it.

Type this instead:

cd ~/Desktop
rm trueblue.exe

If that gives you a permissions error, then try this:

cd ~/Desktop
sudo rm trueblue.exe

Be sure not to leave out any spaces. It's probably easiest just to copy and paste the commands from here into the Terminal window.

[Ogden]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Unfortunately, nothing seems to work. After every command regarding the file name, the Terminal tells me that "trueblue.exe" does not exist in any directory or filename. But its right there on my desktop! Has been for days.

Oh well. Looks like a re-install of OS X is in order. Thanks everyone for your help with this.

Ogden

[msuper69]

Reinstalling the OS just because you can't trash a single file?

Hey, it's your time and system so go ahead but it's a pretty drastic step to take just for this minor annoyance.

One of the suggested posted previously should do the job.

If you can boot into OS 9 you can also delete the file that way.

[Developer]

Originally posted by Ogden:
Thanks for all the suggestions! Unfortunately, nothing seems to work. After every command regarding the file name, the Terminal tells me that "trueblue.exe" does not exist in any directory or filename. But its right there on my desktop! Has been for days.

Oh well. Looks like a re-install of OS X is in order. Thanks everyone for your help with this.

Open the Terminal, type "rm " without the quotes but with the trailing space, drag the file into the Terminal window and hit return. That will remove the file.
If you're told you don't have sufficient permissions to delete the file, do the same with "sudo rm " (without the quotes, with space). You will be asked for your administrator password.

[ApeInTheShell]

Originally posted by Ogden:
Hey everybody!! Somehow (I don't know how!) I wound up with a document on my desktop entitled "trueblue.exe". When I try to drag it to the trash, I get an error message that it is "being used by another task right now and cannot be moved to the trash. Please try again when task is complete". It also won't copy or duplicate into another folder - as if it is being shared by another computer, except that there is nobody connected to me. Weird!!!

What the hell is this thing? Can someone offer me some help, short of a clean install of OS X?

Much appreciated.
Ogden

Don't reinstall the OS, that's the worst thing you can do. Wastes your time and effort. Just drag the file from your finder to the desktop. Follow what CharlesS said and logout. When you log back in the file should be gone. If not make sure it doesn't have any locks on it in get info. I had the same problem with an application i couldn't use and this method worked.
Isn't trueblue.exe a mac os x theme for windows?