topic Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ???? in Inventor Forum

DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

tmathieson — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 14:59:19 GMT

SO... a user was cleaning up some files while he had an assembly opened. thinking that Inventor worked like other software, they could not delete a file from disk while it was opened in an assembly.... well, not the case!!. the user selected a bunch of files in Windows exploder, and hit delete. they did not get any errors about "file is in use", etc.. when they went into the open assembly everything looked right. they saved the assembly closed it, didn't get any errors. when they opened the assembly again, a bunch of the files were missing!! what is up with this? how can a file be deleted off a hard drive when it is opened in an assembly? how can ANY file be delete when it is opened? even Autocad proper doesn't allow this!!

i have attached a short video showing this....

i know of no other software, Excel, Word, other Cad systems, that allows you to delete a file from the hard disk while you have it opened.

i cannot see the logic behind this (i'm sure Autodesk will have some 'valid' reason..., but i'm not interested.). is there some setting or something that we are missing here, like "allow deletion of files even when they are opened" checkbox or something?

thanks for any insight

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

bradeneuropeArthur — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 19:38:37 GMT

The files here are loaded only but the files are opened in memory (Graphically only).

This is correct and is as long as I know the case.

There will be no setting to change that, I am sure of.

@johnsonshiue do you share this assumption?

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

Frederick_Law — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 15:22:43 GMT

Why would a user delete the files they are using?

Any good reason?

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

CGBenner — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 18:08:45 GMT

@tmathieson @bradeneuropeArthur

The explanation that I remember seeing years ago (before I worked for Autodesk) is that the Assembly file is just a graphical representation of the parts and how they are arranged and constrained, but as Arthur said, the parts are NOT open in memory.

EDIT: See @johnsonshiue post below for a more correct explanation. 🙂

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

tobias — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 15:42:58 GMT

An easy way to clean up the directory.

Open an assembly, then delete all the parts in the directory.

The expectation is that all parts in the assembly cannot be deleted because its an opened file

but all unrelated parts will. Unfortunatly that didn't went well, I guess.

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

tobias — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 15:46:22 GMT

But your files are still in the trash folder right ? Hope they are.

Or did you do a shift delete, to permanent delete the files?

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

Frederick_Law — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 15:58:33 GMT

An easy way to clean up the directory.

First time I heard of this way to clean up files ..... 🙄

In any program.

It might work if Vault is used.

I don't know how files and folders are organized in your company.

Can't really recommend a way to clean up files.

Pack n Go can collect all files used in assembly. IDW included.

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

Frederick_Law — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:01:41 GMT

Drawings are not opened with assembly.

So they'll be deleted.

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

mluterman — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:23:58 GMT

Go into the "Old Versions" folder and restore everything (if they're still there). Unfortunately, you cannot recover files deleted from another physical machine/server on the network location unless you are running software like "Undelete" on the server (they just vanish).

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

johnsonshiue — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 17:09:28 GMT

Hi Folks,

Inventor is a file-based distributed design tool relying on referencing multiple files. To facilitate collaborative data management workflows, the files are loaded in the memory when Inventor opens them. After they are loaded in the memory, Inventor operates directly with the memory. An updated version of the files can be pulled down to the disc. The user can use Refresh (File -> Manage -> Refresh) to reload the files on disc to the memory.

This means that the files on disc can be deleted, renamed, copied over after they are loaded in the memory. Otherwise the above collaborative data management workflows will not work. You will not be able to have multiple team members working on different sections of the same assembly, for example.

Many thanks!

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

mslosar — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:02:37 GMT

This is the main reason it isn't recommended to have multiple people working off a network folder (not saying this is happening in this case). Inventor has no protection for files someone has opened. So, you open a file of a network share and work on it, someone else comes in opens the same file, hits save and moves on. You go to save your work and you get hit with errors saying the file isn't the same file, etc.

The only actually protection against something like this is Vault.

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

tmathieson — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 01:37:08 GMT

really? pretty common practice, around here anyways. you're working on an assembly, parts are in your directory. assembly changes, parts get deleted from assembly. you delete the parts from your directory that you no longer need and you inadvertently grab one that is STILL in the assembly... there is no warning or anything, until you save the assembly and get an error that the file can't be saved....

how do you get rid of junk or unwanted files that have built up in the directory or hard drive?🙄

and in reply to your other posts..

1. no one deleted the files they are working on ON PURPOSE...as described above, the user inadvertently selected a file that was 'opened' in the assembly on the screen. AutoCad, Solidworks, Word, Excel, will all give a warning if the file is in use, and not allow you to blow it off to never never land....

2. this has nothing to do with drawings. as stated in my original post, this has to do with being 'allowed' to delete files when the user has them opened in an assembly .

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

tmathieson — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 23:34:19 GMT

yes, we have run into this also, in another scenario.

"Inventor has no protection for files someone has opened"... still trying to get my head around this......

thank you all, for your responses and comments. the files in question were created thru use of an inhouse ilogic rule, so easy enough to recreate them. it is just this concept of files not be "protected" that i can't get my head around.

guess we will just have to get bigger and bigger and bigger hard drives, and not delete anything...

Betreff: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

manuel_stallnig — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:27:20 GMT

I just ran into a similar issue.
I had an ipt open that I had saved earlier but then modified it heavily and wanted to save it again. Not sure what the issue was (maybe wanting to save it in a different place or under different name, or just overwriting the old one), either way I got some kind of error because the file or filename already existed. So I went to look in browser and saw some folder called old versions had appeared, that I didn't want there and didn't see any necessity for, and neither had I use for the old ipt, so I deleted them. (I have developed a bad habit of using shift+delete, because if I want something gone, I want it gone, and I hate having to empty the trash bin all the time).
Anyway. Now afterwards I can't "save file as..." because it throws an error. It is not an assembly but a part, and it is still open in the program, so why can't I save it as a new file?

Re: DELETING FILES FROM HARD DRIVE WHILE ASSEMBLY OPEN - ????

johnsonshiue — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 01:42:47 GMT

Hi Manuel,

I believe this has something to do with the fact that the file on disk that was originally open on Inventor no longer exists. In such scenario, any attempt to save the file (Save, Save As, or Save Copy As) is blocked. This may have something to do with how Inventor manages the files on disk and the ones loaded in the memory. When the file on disk is gone, Inventor may not be able to save the persistent data back to the file. Let me work with the project team to understand it better.

Many thanks!