It would not be at all strange to require an ISO file to perform a clean installation of the operating system. After this, since we no longer need this file, what we would generally do is proceed to delete it from our computer, especially if we consider that these kinds of files are large in GB and take up a lot of space. The inconvenience comes when a message appears warning us that it can’t be done eliminate he archive ISO because it is in use or open in the system. What can we do to fix it?
Actually, solving this problem is infinitely easier than we might imagine. With this guide, we can assure you that in less than five minutes you will have this file removed from your computer.
Cannot delete ISO file because it is in use or open on the system
Eject or unmount the ISO file
When we use an ISO file, we double-click it and a folder or window automatically appears where we can view all the files inside. Let’s remember that an ISO file is nothing more than a compressed file with more files inside.
What actually happens is that this kind of format is used to burn to DVD or mount a bootable USB to install Windows, for example. By double-clicking it, what we do is “mount” it on our computer and if we go to “This computer” or “My Computer” we will see that it will appear as another disk drive or as if we had inserted a pendrive.
So, since it remains mounted until we eject it, we will not be able to remove it from our computer because it is actually in use. What we will have to do is just that, disassemble it.
For this we go to This computer or My computer and look for the file mounted among the drives. Then we are going to right click and choose Dismount or Eject. Once we do this, we are going to delete the ISO file without any problems.
Restart your computer
In case the above solution doesn’t work or is too confusing. What we can do is something much simpler: restart the computer. After it starts we can delete this file from the PC without much inconvenience.
Boot into safe mode and delete the ISO file
In very few cases, even if the ISO file is not mounted on the computer, we will not be able to delete it anyway. This happens because sometimes one or more background applications are making use of the file.
Therefore, we are going to start the computer in safe mode and once started, we locate the file, right-click it and choose Delete.
Use file deletion software
Some file deletion programs work better than Windows “Delete”. So it wouldn’t be a bad idea to use one of these to be able to get rid of that ISO file that refuses to leave us. In our case, “File Unlocker” worked for us, which we can download from this link and it has a free version, which is more than enough for what we need to do.
