![]() ![]() ![]() In order to achieve such surgical result we need to get our hands to another great Sysinternals utility that goes by the name of Handle. SolutionExplorer is a great analysis tool, yet it lacks some useful options to actually fix our specific issue: altough we can use it to kill a whole process, it doesn't provide a way to release a specific handle: whenever we're dealing with files locked by processes we cannot kill, such as SYSTEM, this can be a problem. ![]() This will allow us to use it to easily fix most unwanted file locks in a matter of seconds: we just have to search for the locked file, retrieve the process which is keeping the handle and close (or kill) it accordingly. The tool also features a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded. ![]() This small, yet great portable utility (no setup, just download and run) allows you to see all the currently active processes within your system, including the names of their owning accounts and a full list of handles ( files) that the process selected in the top window has opened, including (if we switch it to DLL mode) the system DLLs: this basically means that we can fully understand what's going on, and which process is holding our files. With Sysinternals Process Explorer (or simply ProcessExplorer) things start looking good. The software is also freeware and it gets the job done just like the former one. The program is freeware, but it carries a huge amount of bloatware you need to opt-out from: doing that will even require some attention, because the setup program will try to guide you into installing them and I just really don't like it.Īs a viable alternative you could also try IOBit Unlocker, which is basically the IOBit attempt to capitalize the "unlocker" brand because the original author didn't make it into a commercial hit (yet).You won't learn anything from using that, including what process (or process chain) will be abruptly shutdown with the intent to free your file.or not! I personally don't recommend using this software for at least two reasons: If we don't want to bother about what's happening to our system and just want to release that damn file we can think about trying to use Unlocker, a freeware application made by Cedrick Collomb that could automatically fix your issue. Whenever this happens, you're going to equip yourself with a few freeware tools that might really help you fixing your issue for good. However there is always a small chance that, after you spent a reasonable amount of time checking and/or temporarily shutting down your resident software, you would still have absolutely no idea of what process is actually keeping that file open. Again, if you're a seasoned Windows user, you will have no problem to figure it out soon enough. What to do when there are no active applications that seems to be locking that file? As soon as you are sure about it you can focus your attention to other Windows processes, such as some active services that could have it open: Antivirus software, Database services, Source Control Managers, Software Optimizers, Backup Tools, Firewall/security systems and so on. Whenever that's the case, the fix is right around the corner: you close the offending application - be it MS Word, MS Excel, MS Access, Photoshop and so on - then go back to the file and do whatever you want with it. If you're an experienced Windows user you most certainly know that, when you see something like this, it usually means that there is a running application which still has that file opened in an exclusive mode - thus locking it from any IO write operations: no rename, no move and certainly no delete. The action cannot be completed because the file is open in SYSTEM. The action can’t be completed because the file is open in another program. You need to move, rename or delete a file and - as soon as you try to do that - you're greeted by the following popup message:įile in Use. The scenario we're about to introduce is an unbeatable classic for anyone working with Windows. ![]()
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