Posted on

Use Openedfilesview To Recognize The Process Which Locks The File

Use Openedfilesview To Recognize The Process Which Locks The File

You must have noticed many times that you get an error message while deleting a file. The error message says that the file cannot be deleted due to a sharing violation as the source/ destination file might be in use.

Sometimes the error message says that the file cannot be deleted as another person/ program is being using that file and you need to close any such program and try deleting the file again. If you are able to recognize the program that has been locking the file, you can close it and try deleting the file again.

However, sometimes, even after you close the program that has been locking the file, you are unable to delete it. This means that there might be some other Windows process running which might have locked the file. In such cases, rather than restarting your system, you may use a utility known as “OpenedFilesView” to identify the programs and processes which have locked the file.

As OpenedFilesView happen to be an executable file by itself, you do not need to install it or execute any DLL. You simply need to launch it to view the entire list of open files along with all the running processes which have been locking the files.

 

OpenedFilesView also displays additional information such as the path of the open files, time of creation and modification, handle, read/write/delete access, ID of the process, path of the process etc.

For identifying the proper process which has locked a particular file that you have been trying to delete, you need to locate the particular filename by looking through the filename field. Once you find the required file, check for the corresponding process in the column “Process Name”.

In order to release the locked file, you may close the corresponding process from the OpenedFilesView interface itself. You need to right-click on the file and select the option that kills the processes for the selected file.

For easy access, the OpenedFilesView software utility can be configured as an option within the context menu of Windows Explorer. For adding OpenedFilesView to the context menu, all you need to do is, launch OpenedFilesView, go to the Options menu and check the checkbox of the option that enables Explorer Context Menu.  

If you right-click on a particular folder and select OpenedFilesView from the context menu, it will display the open files which are located inside that particular folder only. Likewise, if you right-click on a particular file and select OpenedFilesView, you will be able to view all open handles for that particular file.

OpenedFilesView is supported by most Windows Operating Systems including Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and 2003. This tiny utility consumes just 40KB of your system’s memory space and is definitely worth being a part of your system. Moreover, OpenedFilesView is a freeware and can be downloaded free of cost.

FileAssasin, FileAndFolder Unlocker and Unlocker are some of the other alternatives to OpenedFilesView.

Posted on

An Easy Solution To Delete Folders And Files Used By Another Program

An Easy Solution To Delete Folders And Files Used By Another Program

Sometimes Deleting few files and folders becomes tedious. Certain notifications are displayed by the system while deleting them. The notifications are as follows:

  •  It will give you an error message which says that the file or folder cannot be deleted since other person or program is using that file.
  •  An error message that the file cannot be deleted, as the access to the file is denied.
  •  A message displaying that the file (source/destination) is already in use.
  •  A message displaying that there is a shared violation.
  •  A message asking the user to ensure whether the disk is fully protected or write-protected and whether the file is presently used by another person or program.

To completely delete the files and folders from the system, one needs to restart the system if such notifications are displayed. Instead of restarting the system, one can also use some disengaging tools to delete them completely from the system.

Notifications listed above pop up when trying to delete folders or files. These notifications are displayed by any operating system from Microsoft. The above notifications are errors generated when the system engages the files and folders being used, and one is trying to delete them at the same time.

Sometimes these errors in form of notifications are also displayed when certain files and folders are unused or left idle. To overcome this issue, one can utilise tools from third party to disengage or unlock these files and folders. These tools will disengage the locked folders and files, in turn allowing one to delete them easily.

  • Download disengage tool called “Unlocker” and have it installed on the system.
  • Select the file or folder, for which notifications are displayed. Right Click on them.
  • Choose by clicking an option called Unlocker.

  • New window pops up providing an elaborate list of all locked folders and files with their respective paths. Now to disengage them, select unlock option which will kill this process by terminating all the associated programs with them.

  • The particular folder or file is unlocked.
  • Now to delete the particular folder or file, simply select Delete button.
  • This successfully completes the delete operation.