Find which process is using a file

I prefer to use Resource Monitor compare to Process Explorer since Process Explorer is slower especially during "Refreshing handles" process.

Desson Ariawan Programmer. Tutorials Windows. The action can't be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program. To get the process holding those folder or file, we can use these two utilities: Resource Monitor Process Explorer.

For Windows 7 and above, you can use the built-in Resource Monitor. Open Resource Monitor, which can be found By searching for resmon. Open Process Explorer running as "administrator" by running procexp.

Pacerier: Nice. I'm not used to things being in the Windows path. Show 9 more comments. Community Bot 1. Mark Sowul Mark Sowul 1, 1 1 gold badge 10 10 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges. It seems strange to me that Windows would immediately re-use the number of a closed handle, rather than continuing to increment the number and only wrapping around when necessary. That would at least greatly reduce the chances of this problem happening. RichVel Terminating the culprit process is probably better than a complete reboot.

DmitryGrigoryev - good point, and in fact I already mentioned that here — RichVel. This is a very important warning, but doesn't answer the question How do you find what process is holding a file open in Windows?

Show 4 more comments. John Fouhy John Fouhy 1, 7 7 silver badges 4 4 bronze badges. Really helpful. This makes this feature not very useful. Show 2 more comments. Greg Hewgill Greg Hewgill 6, 3 3 gold badges 28 28 silver badges 26 26 bronze badges. I use this tool all the time. Best of all, you can use it to force close handles. I've been told so many times at SO that link-only answers are discouraged.

With this here now I'm one of those purists. Add a comment. Scoregraphic Scoregraphic 6 6 silver badges 9 9 bronze badges. It's also available from that file's context menu in Windows Explorer. In my case none of other answers worked, also Lockhunter when I typed in the file name did not find any process locking it, but the context menu option worked! With this here now I'm one of those purists; and even a double one.

Maximus Minimus Maximus Minimus 8, 1 1 gold badge 20 20 silver badges 34 34 bronze badges. I won't blame a 3rd party app on the fact that my windows explorer always locks Thumbs. Darth, Are you a marketer from Microsoft?

Brian Kelley K. Brian Kelley 8, 30 30 silver badges 33 33 bronze badges. Exactly, why are there such complicated answers? This is much safer than closing the handle, and less disruptive than rebooting. Applies to other programs too - I often find a Microsoft Office program holds locks on files even after I've closed them. Generic Error Generic Error 3 3 gold badges 8 8 silver badges 16 16 bronze badges. Doesn't work in bit Windows 8 and With this here now I'm one of those purists; and even a triple one.

Dirk Paessler Dirk Paessler 1 1 gold badge 7 7 silver badges 15 15 bronze badges. Ivan Kochurkin Ivan Kochurkin 1 1 gold badge 1 1 silver badge 6 6 bronze badges. Christopher Galpin Christopher Galpin 6 6 silver badges 18 18 bronze badges. Personally I like this better than Process Explorer for this specific tasks. With this here now I'm one of those purists; and even a quadruple one. Blair Blair 31 2 2 bronze badges. Gerold Broser 1 1 silver badge 8 8 bronze badges. The updated version of this is process monitor.

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Improve this answer. Community Bot 1 1 1 silver badge. Neil Neil MichaelBest Search the link in the Wayback Machine to get a nicely formatted result, or to see the migrated version here. Marc Marc 1, 2 2 gold badges 10 10 silver badges 15 15 bronze badges. On Linux this is not much of a problem since inodes are refcounted, so you can remove a file even if someone is holding it open. AndreasN AndreasN 2, 2 2 gold badges 23 23 silver badges 29 29 bronze badges. Mathias Mathias Sign up or log in Sign up using Google.

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