I posted this message yesterday... "I am running Windows XP Pro. I have precaching and indexing turned off. I have some large files on my computer (700MB movie rips). Problem is, when I try to rename or move them, I get an error stating that Windows us using the file. Not only that, but sometimes simply highlighting the file with my pointer will totally hang Explorer. If I go into Windows Media Player and open them from the player, it doesn't hang at all. Explorer just tends to die when I try to navigate them. I can't delete them, move then, rename them, or do anything since it all freezes up as soon as they're highlighted. What sort of Windows process is loading these huge files and killing my machine before I even try to open them? And how do I turn it off?" Soon after, I received a reply from someone who said this: "The problem is that the video file you are trying to open is corrupt. The index system within the file is corrupt and windows exlorer trys to search through the whole file peice by peice to repair or find the index. This is why you system hangs at 100% cpu usage. And constantly says the file is in use. Even if you click on the file to try and delete it it will start searching again. The solution involves changing a setting within system registry that prevents explorer trying to "fix" the corrupt file index but i cant for my life remember what it is." Does anyone have any idea to do what he's talking about?

He's basically right - there IS a fix, and a Google search "large avi files microsoft.com" gave the link right at the top of the page. See here for details.

I'm going to have to contact Microsoft so they send me the solution? Why don't they put it right on the site? I have SP2, and I am having this problem, so the service pack suggestion is obviously wrong.

Your gonna love me Ive remembered how to clear the problem. Well windows seem to have a REALLY big problem when it comes to reading AVI files. It seems that when you click on an AVI file in explorer, it'll try to read the entire AVI file to determine the width,height, etc. of the AVI file (this is displayed in the Properties window). Now the problem with Windows is that if you have a broken/not fully downloaded AVI file that doesnt contain this info, Windows will scan the entire AVI file trying to figure out all these properties which in the process will probably cause 100% CPU usage and heavy memory usage. To solve this problem all you have to do is the following: 1. Open up regedit 2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler 3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}" Voila! Please not that this will no longer provide you with the windows properties displaying the AVI file information such as width, height, bitrate etc. But its a small price to pay. NOTE: Please use caution when using regedit. Improper usage may cause windows to behave imcorrectly. Also, I cannot be held resposible. Backup your registry first.

Thank you very much. It worked. No more hanging. Much appreciated. =)

Nice one Firetrap!! You are a genius !!!!!