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Often, on my Windows computers, when I go to delete or move directories or files, an error message appears explaining that this action can not be completed because one of the files is being used by another program.
Is there a program that allows me, for a given file, to find out what program is using it and end that program?
Edit (2022): PowerToy's File Locksmith is a great Microsoft tool that does this now.
LockHunter is another great free tool.
download link
I regularly use Process Explorer, (free from Microsoft), to do exactly what you are asking for you can search for which programs/tasks are using a given file or directory and then kill the program or program tree. You can even find a DLL that has a given file locked and then find and kill those programs that are using that DLL.
It also gives you a lot of other useful information.
Try Unlocker.
It creates an entry in the right-click menu of files which will show you a list of processes that are accessing the file, through which you can then detach the process (or if needed kill it outright).
I use Unlocker regularly to help me safely eject USB drives that like to have handles kept open and more often than not it does help. The only downside I have found (and this may not be a problem with Unlocker itself, but with the programs that are keeping the handles open) is that most times simply detaching the process doesn't work and I have to kill it outright.
While there are a number of more feature-full programs that can perform the same functionality as Unlocker, for the purpose of releasing file handles this is the one I have found to be quicker and to work more consistently.
Note: Please be aware Unlocker contains potentially malicious adware in the installation process and employs the OpenCandy advertising module in its installer. If you are cautious during the installation process, read every dialog presented to you, and deselect anything that doesn't sound like it is part of Unlocker then you can easily avoid installing anything malicious on your system.
The following image shows the dialog that I received as a result of the OpenCandy module, where I have already selected "Advanced" and unchecked the "Install Delta toolbar" checkbox:
With a bit of finessing, process monitor by sysinternals would do this. The only real issue is the sheer amount of information - you're expected to use the filters, but I ended up simply restricting the information shown to file system activity, and see what program is using it by searching for the exact filename (In this case, test.text).
As with any of sysinternals software, its tiny, portable and does exactly what it says on the tin - it quite literally has no other features other than monitoring processes by filesystem, registry, network and process activity. Considering the level of access it needs, it needs to be run as admin/undergo UAC escalation.
It won't let you unlock a file directly, but it will show you wnat is using it, and you can kill the parent process properly to undo the lock.
handle is a Microsoft-hosted command line tool doing just that. It was written by Sysinternals, now owned by Microsoft. You can give it a file or directory name (or any "handle") and it prints the program's exe and the process ID (PID). You can give it partial filenames ie. "fragments", too.
Basic usage:
handle c:\movie.mp4
would print its header and then something like
vlc.exe pid: 1256 type: File 1EC: c:\movie.mp4
Usage is printed with handle -h
A handy way to use it is listing the files open on your pen drive. If your pen is D:, you can run handle D: and it will print which programs use your drive and which file.
scripting notes
First usage asks GUI for EULA. There used to be an -accepteula parameter that doesn't seem to work with all recent versions. The value is stored in dword HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sysinternals\Handle\EulaAccepted. You can have the same affect as accept by adding
REG ADD "HKCU\Software\Sysinternals\Handle" /v EulaAccepted /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
There are many other interesting sysinternals utilities hosted at the Microsoft site.
Process Hacker does that:
Features
- A detailed overview of system activity with highlighting.
- Graphs and statistics allow you quickly to track down resource hogs and runaway processes.
- Can't edit or delete a file? Discover which processes are using that file.
- See what programs have active network connections, and close them if necessary.
- Get real-time information on disk access.
- View detailed stack traces with kernel-mode, WOW64 and .NET support.
- Go beyond services.msc: create, edit and control services.
- Small, portable and no installation required.
- 100% Free Software (GPL v3)
You can use the Resource Monitor for this which comes built-in with Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11!
When you've found the handle, you can identify the process by looking at the Image and/or PID column.
You can then try to close the application as you normally would, or, if that's not possible, just right-click the handle and kill the process directly from there. Easy peasy!
Microsoft has a new utility to the PowerToys toolset that will help Windows users find the processes using selected files and unlock them without requiring a third-party tool.
PowerToys 0.64.0 also adds a Windows hosts file editor and a long list of bug fixes and changes that add stability and improve the other built-in tools.
As its name implies, the new File Locksmith utility can be used to deal with locked files that can't be deleted or opened because Windows says another process is using them.
"File Locksmith lists which processes are using the selected files or directories and allows closing those processes," the tool's description reads.
While, until now, most users would have to install a third-party program designed to get rid of the "locked" status, you can now check which files are being used by which processes by right-clicking them in the File Explorer and clicking "What's using this file?" in the context menu.
You can then terminate any processes found by File Locksmith or scan again using administrator privileges to look for processes launched by all users.
