Dear Aunt TUAW: Excel pooped on my desktop

Dear Aunt TUAW,

I just started using Lion and for the first time loaded up Excel today. Much to my surprise, I ended up with a whole bunch of Excel temporary files on the desktop (see the attached screen shot)

So I go ahead and try to delete them and I can't. Lion won't let me. It puts up this message.

And then I try deleting them from the command and they aren't in my Desktop folder!!! I mean, WTF, Auntie. What are these files and why can't I delete them?

Your loving nephew,

Raoul W.

Dear Raoul,

Alas, Auntie has run across these Excel droppings as well in her work and sympathizes. There is a quick solution, however. You just need to restart Finder.

Auntie sees that you're comfortable at the command line, so just use a simple killall Finder. Finder will restart and that nasty detritus will be whisked off from your Desktop.

For those of you who don't have a "Snuggie" level of comfort with Terminal, Auntie has another suggestion. Choose Apple menu > Force Quit, and then highlight Finder in the list of open applications. The "Force Quit" button magically changes to a "Relaunch" button that will also shovel the Excel dung out of the Mac desktop stable.

Hugs,

Auntie T.