How do I delete a 'locked' file?

Question

On Windows XP, When I try and delete a specific file it says :

Cannot delete blah.blah: Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

How can I go around this warning and delete it anyway?

Answer 1

To successfully delete a locked file, you will need to identify the process which has locked the file. You need to exit the process first and then delete the file. To know which process has locked a file you need a tool such as Microsoft Sysinternals' Process Explorer (PE).

Once you have PE installed ...

1. Click the Find menu, and choose Find Handle or DLL ...
2. Type the file name (name of the file which is locked by some process.)
3. After typing the search phrase, click the Search button

You should see the list of applications which are accessing the file :

Now you can kill the offending process using PE or something else.

Answer 2

With Unlocker. You could also try booting into safe mode (or just rebooting) and see if you can delete it then.

Edit (2013-02-09): I've found something better. LockHunter.

Answer 3

Unlocker is good, but personally I prefer MalwareByte's FileAssassin.

Answer 4

Seeing your comments, it's best to have a different antivirus do it for you then. All of the other files associated with it will also be removed from the system.

Raven's answer is correct, of course, but if you're pretty sure the file is part of a worm/virus, it's better to have it deleted by an actual antivirus.

Answer 5

When I have a file I can't delete, say from some application I wanted to try out, I reboot and see if I can delete it then. If that fails, I either:

1. Boot into Safe Mode and delete (as has been mentioned elsewhere)
2. Boot using a Live CD or Rescue CD, and use the CD tools to mount the drive and then delete the file.

This is one reason why I used Sandboxie(http://www.sandboxie.com/) to test new applications. Sanboxie makes it very easy to clean about the detritus of an application install.

If you computer has been compromised, most security experts would strongly recommend that you clean install you system.

If you have been infected by a Trojan:

1. You should back up all you data, perhaps including important configurations files (e.g., your Browser settings, or at least you bookmarks).
2. Then you should clean install your system, apply all available security patches, and install some kind of virus and/or malware scanner.
3. Finally, scan all the files you backed up, using you newly cleaned system or some other clean system, before restoring them.

Trying to manually clean a system is only possible in the luckiest of cases, and you never know if something was left behind. I would recommend not taking the chance.

Answer 6

Try a program such as Unlocker (only available for x86). You can use it to see all the locks and remove them if you want.

For x64, there might be similar programs as well. A more complicated and more general approach if there isn't is to use program such as Process Explorer, where you search for handles containing the file or program name, and delete all the handles you see.