Hi all,

Please, PLEASE help me with this. It's been bothering me for perhaps a year now. I'm running Vista.

I have a selection of OLD games on my computer, e.g. Skyroads, Ganja Farmer, etc.

The application (.exe) files used to run these games are obviously old, MS-DOS files, e.g. when I select properties, they have a "program" tab with the MS-DOS logo.

Basically I want to be able to rename these files from e.g. "Skrd.exe" to "Skyroads.exe", because I'm very nerdy and organised like that.

So I right-click, rename, type the new name in, and I get this:

"The action can't be completed because the file is open in another program. Close the file and try again." with TRY AGAIN or CANCEL as options. Obviously TRY AGAIN does nothing.

How in God's name can this file be open in another program when NOTHING is using it?

This only happens with MS-DOS applications, and I really *need* to rename them - with the same ease that I can rename every other file on my PC.

(Before you tell me that it is impossible or that these files HAVE to keep their original name, this isn't true because I've renamed MSDOS files on previous Windows versions and they still ran the game fine.)

But wait, it gets even worse. After I have TRIED to rename one of these files, they suddenly become impossible to delete or move or anything, etc. until I restart the computer. It's like attempting to rename them LOCKS them up, somehow. For example, if I try to rename "skrds.exe", and get the error message above, and then try to move/delete it, I get the exact same error message above (until reboot).

This is absolutely doing my head in, now. Is there a method of making these files renamable (like ordinary .exe files), or is there some kind of program equipped for dealing with these kinds of old, MSDOS files? Do I have to change anything in the properties, e.g. permissions, or something?

Please help!

Seriously, ALL I want to do is rename these files from something like skyrds.exe to Skyroads.exe without getting this stupid error message (and file lockup) every time.

Any intelligent ideas would be appreciated! Please help!

All the best,

Marko

Power down machine, see taskmanager or msconfig.

Try start in safe mode.

Open command prompt as admin and try rename.

"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10

Hi there,

Thanks for your suggestion. I had already thought of that, and I think it might work, but it's obviously very cumbersome and I was wonderig if anybody on here knew a way to just make it so that these files can be renamed as easily as any other file?

Any ideas?

Marko

Temporarily disable UAC & activate the Hidden Admin Account in Vista & from that profile, try to rename the applicable files. When you are done, deactivate the account & re-enable UAC.

Go download 'unlocker' and rename those files.

J.
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