How do I truncate or clear a file that's in use?

Question

We have a Windows 2000 box running Apache that's running out of disk space. We can't shut down or restart Apache to clear the lock (I'm a UNIX guy, not sure what the equivelant term for Windows is) on the file because it takes too long to restart.

Trying something like

ren access_log access_log.bak

or

del access_log

results in

The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

How do we clear down the file without taking down Apache?

Answer 1

Apache is currently using that file, the only real way is to kill the process that the file is being used by, Apache.

You can try using Unlocker on the file and see if you can remove the lock, it could help.