How to detect why I cannot delete directory?

Question

I cannot delete empty directory, I would like to know why. That directory did contain movie that was being played by my custom player and it might somehow be still blocking the directory. however it is closed and not visible in process list under ctrl+alt+delete.

I have installed Process Monitor and when I from console execute

rmdir directory

it says it cannot be deleted and PM says

Operation: CreateFile
Result: SHARING VIOLATION

Desired Access: Read Attributes, Delete, Synchronize
Disposition:    Open
Options:    Directory, Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Open Reparse Point
Attributes: n/a
ShareMode:  Read, Write, Delete
AllocationSize: n/a

what can I do to discover why I cannot delete that dir and how to delete it?

P.S. I know I will be able to delete it after restaring computer, but that I would like to know why my player is blocking that directory.

Answer 1

You can use Process Explorer's "find handle" feature with (part of) the directory name to see what processes, if any, have a handle on that directory.

Answer 2

I would first look at the permissions , are you logged in as an account with permissions to remove it. Local admin account maybe? or domain admin if your on a domain.

Failing that try restart of the machine, normally clears up most things , including stopping the program that may be using this file/folder within it. Might want to view hidden files/folders and system protected files within the folder view options.

"if at first you don't succeed, reboot and try again" - lol