Question

One thing that annoys me no end about Windows is the old "sharing violation" error. Often you can't identify what's holding it open. Usually it's just an editor or explorer just pointing to a relevant directory but sometimes I've had to resort to rebooting my machine.

Any suggestions on how to find the culprit?

Answer 1

I've had success with Sysinternals Process Explorer. With this, you can search to find what process(es) have a file open, and you can use it to close the handle(s) if you want.

Answer 2

unlocker is also useful for this

Answer 3

Try the openfiles command.

Answer 4

I've used Handle with success to find such processes in the past.

Answer 5

Just be very careful with closing handles; it's even more dangerous than you'd think, because of handle recycling - if you close the file handle, and the program opens something else, that original file handle may be reused. And now guess what happens if the program continues to work with the handle, thinking it is some other file.

see Raymond Chen's post on this topic

Answer 6

Who Lock Me works well and keeps people amused with the name!

Answer 7

On a remote server, when you're checking on a network share, something as simple as the Computer Management console can display this information and close the file.

Answer 8

Apropos Explorer holding a file open: "When this happens on a file you need to delete, you have the choice of forcing the handle closed, or rebooting."

You can just end Explorer.

If this is a one-time thing (Explorer does not normally hold this file open) then I would guess logging off and logging back on will do the trick.

Otherwise, kill the desktop Explorer process and do what you want while it's gone. First start a copy of cmd.exe (you need a UI to do your intended cleanup). Make sure there are no non-desktop Explorers running. Then kill the last Explorer with, e.g., Task Manager. Do what you want in the command prompt. Finally, run Explorer from the command prompt, and it will become the desktop.

I'd guess there may be some residual unpleasantness if some systray programs can't deal with the shell restarting.

Answer 9

Just to clarify, this is more likely to be a result of misbehaving 3rd party apps not using the CreateFile API call correctly than it is to be anything in Windows itself. Perhaps it's a consequence of the design of CreateFile, but done is done and we can't go back.

Basically when opening a file in a Windows program you have the option to specify a flag that allows shared access. If you don't specify the flag, the program takes exclusive access of the file.

Now, if Explorer seems to be the culprit here, it may be the case that that's just on the surface, and that the true culprit is something that installs a shell extension that opens all files in a folder for it's own purposes but is either too gung-ho in doing so, or that doesn't clean up properly after itself. Symantec AV is something I've seen doing this before, and I wouldn't be surprised if other AV programs were also to blame. Source control plug-ins may also be at fault.

So not really an answer, but just some advice to not always blame Windows for what may be a badly written 3rd party program (something that can also happen on any other OS, by the way).

Answer 10

There is NirSoft's Opened Files View as well.

Answer 11

I got turned on to the Exteneded Task Manager a while ago by Jeremy Zawodny's blog, and it's great for tracking down further info on processes too. +1 for Process Explorer as above, too, especially for killing processes that the standard Task Manager won't end.

Answer 12

Files can be locked by local processes (unlocker is the tool to use) and by file access that comes in through shares.

There is a built-in function in Windows that shows you what files on the local computer are open/locked by remote computer (which has the file open through a file share):

* Select "Manage Computer" (Open "Computer Management")
* click "Shared Folders"
* choose "Open Files"

There you can even close the file forcefully.

Answer 13

Lockhunter (http://lockhunter.com/) works on 32 and 64bit systems.