I did not try Unlocker, because I had not found this forum topic in time.

With 10 here, **maybe** ought to make it a sticky?

It's happened to me several times, & I've read complaints from Many others -- after upgrading to 10 you run Disk Clean Up, to get rid of the old files, & afterwards the same Windows.old folder is sitting there staring you in the face. Happens because Windows couldn't delete one or more files inside. I've had those orphans need permissions changed, or they've been in use, or once they needed repaired.

I had a number of files with zero size and names too long to be handled in Windows. After trying a number of Windows tools, I finally succeeded in deleting them in DOS-mode.

I did not try Unlocker, because I had not found this forum topic in time.

Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions. I downloaded all three programs & the first one - Unlocker, did the trick! At least, it appears to have worked. ;-) I deleted it with Unlocker, emptied the Recycle bin, & then rebooted....and as of right now, it's still gone, YIPPEE!! I've been fiddling with this for a few days & this was so incredibly quick & easy. *happy dance* :-D

Try this little gem DelennDax7 :)
FilExile
The Stubborn File/Directory Deletion Tool

Another free app along the same lines as Unlocker is LockHunter
http://lockhunter.com/

Unfortunately I've never found a silver bullet that worked in all cases -- if you Google on something like "can't delete 0kb file" [w/out quotes] you'll find several things that you can try.

If it's truly deleted, it may disappear in a reboot. I've seen that with Windows 8.1.

However, you might want to try Unlocker. It might actually remove it. I've found it a very helpful utility.

I'm using windows &, 64-bit PC. I have a dual drive setup. The file was originally an epub file that I saved on the C drive-the other drive is called D. I noticed that the epub extension was missing so I deleted it & redownloaded the correct file with the epub extension intact. I honestly can't recall if the "trashed" misnamed file was truly thrown away at that time or if I just noticed it reappearing at another time. I "think" the problem is simply because the author's last name is simply "A." - maybe that's why the epub extension wasn't automatically put onto the first file?? (Seems to me I've accidentally put 2 dots before an extension before without it causing a problem.) Anyhow, I can't trash, move, copy, or rename this file at all at this point. It tells me that the file is no longer there. NOW, you may wonder WHY I really "need" for this file to be truly trashed....because it bugs the bajeebers outta me!! :-) What on Earth could be the problem?? I've tried going into Safe Mode to delete but that doesn't work either. I've tried "Recovering" the file & then redeleting it..doesn't work either. I've Recovered it & then saved on D drive & copied it over the C drive version, same result....it won't delete it. Thanks for any help anybody can give me. ~Dax