Originally posted by soniaarora
The physical
datafile must then be removed using an operating system command (Oracle NEVER
physically removes any datafiles). Depending on which platform you try this
on, you may not be able to physically delete the datafile until Oracle is
completely shut down. (For example, on Windows NT, you may have to shutdown
Oracle AND stop the associated service before the operating system will allow
you to delete the file - in some cases, file locks are still held by Oracle.)

nope, you dont need to shutdown the database in NT to remove a datafile that has been logically removed from Oracle. You just query any of datafile related datadictionary views ater removing the datafile from Oracle using sql syntex. Your lock gets released and you can remove the file physically...

Steps on NT:

alter database drop <; --logical deletion of datafile
select * from dba_data_files; --this releases locks on datafile
remove the file physically..
This works...
-nagarjuna