File unlocking

In defense of Unlocker, I've never had prob as a result of using it and I've used it for years. At a minimum you can use it to see what prog is holding onto your file -- and it gives you more and less serious ways to close the file.

sh


Quote:
Originally Posted by shieber
If you want to unlock a file that's been held onto when you don't want it to be, you can use a free program called unlocker:

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

It's a pretty nifty prog when you need it.

sh


Such a program is dangerous to use.

If I cannot delete using Process Explorer or Task Manager, them something is seriously wrong.

I would do a reboot after any such deletion anyway.

 

I have ONCE used the unlock on reboot feature of unlocker.
This is a totally safe thing to do (, this is how/why some uninstallations require a reboot; they add to a list of Pending File Rename Operations key in the registry.

Heres how I would approach:

1. Try and kill process in task manager (does not need a reboot usually if you are sure you can relaunch whatever you kill).
2. Try and kill handles with process explorer (always reboot after, as can cause crashes).
3. Try and reboot.
4. Try and reboot into safemode.
5. Look in registry for a entry causing a on-startup process to lock file using process explorer and delete entry if I am sure its not needed and reboot.
6. Try unlocker and reboot.

I have only ever got as far as 6 once since nt4 was released (that how long I've been a developer !!).

I would say that the risk is with the user knowing if the file is safe to delete or not.

 

I think the first step is to find out what process/prog is holding onto your file-- sometimes it's IE or one of the backgroudn services for, say, adobe photoshop or such. Unlocker is good for this

If it's a prog you have open and are done using, just close it -- Sometime Itunes, for example, will hold onto a file you have imported into Itunes even though on import it made it's own copy and uses that in its database references. So Killing the prog will usually free the kidnapped file. If that doesn't free the file then use unlocker to unlock it.

Reboot should be a last resort, imo, unless you're using win 95, 2in 98, or heaven forbid, win ME.