Hi all, I have a question about .mov files. If I view them on my PC {using the Quicktime Free Player) I can't seem to move them to another directory. I get the "this file is in use by another program blah..blah..blah dialog box" I've looked in the running apps & processes to try and identify what is causing this but don't see any obvious candidates. A reboot seems to cure the problem but it is a bit of a nuisance. Any help would be appreciated.

Try selecting the file, and keeping it selected for 2-10 seconds - until the filesize, format and video length show up at the bottom of Windows Explorer pane. This should fix it.

Windows insists on reading the headers of the file whenever you select it, and video files seem to sometimes take quite a while to finish. You can't move the file until it is finished. Annoying as hell.

Thanks Feppe but that didn't do it. I came upon something that advised disabling qttask.exe in the startup folder by using msconfig, that helped with some but not all of the files. The only way I was able to move them was to uninstall quicktime completely. There are some inquires about this problem on the Apple "support" forums but..... no answers


Anyone know of another PC program to play .mov files?

Use VLC Media Player - far more stable, more compatible with Windows' environments and less CPU intensive - it's also free!

My suggestion: Do a complete uninstall of QuickTime

Hi Chris, it worked like the proverbial charm. Took a bit of time for the QT to uninstall.. it must have had it's fruit laden tentacles all over my poor PC

Oh well you can't win them all

I recently treated myself to an IPOD touch and installed ITunes..seems ITunes won't start without quicktime installed

UPDATE: I just discovered a neat little win app called "unlocker" It's freeware and available from a number of sites as well as http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/. It adds an option to your right click menu that, when invoked, shows you exactly what program or process has it's hooks in your file, let's you kill the hooks and delete the file(s).

I solved the problem (at least for my purposes) just by having an extra .MOV file in the directory (name it to 'dummy.mov'). When I'm finished with the real .MOV files, I open the dummy file and that unlocks the one I was viewing. So then I can remove the other files and leave the dummy there.