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Windows Error Code 33 is

The process cannot access the file because another process has locked a portion of the file.

What kind of a process would lock only a portion of a file ? In other words what kind of a file would allow only a portion of itself to be locked ?

Examples of processes and files that would cause this error to occur for the average user would be really helpful.

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  • The file might be big and therefore might be written to disk in fragments. Those fragments might be saved in multiple sectors on the HDD. If your AV is scanning HDD, or you have other software that is reviewing HDD storage (like defragmentation job), it might be possible that single portion of the file is being processed a the moment.
    – mnmnc
    Apr 14, 2015 at 10:30
  • Like in the case of a database that exists as a file ?
    – Dhiwakar Ravikumar
    Apr 14, 2015 at 10:46
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    Yeap, possibly. Different disks/file systems have different base unit size (for example 512 KB or 4000+ KB), if the file is bigger and there is no consecutive free space available for the file you are saving - i think it will be stored in parts.
    – mnmnc
    Apr 14, 2015 at 11:35

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This error appears when you try to access a portion of a file which is locked by another program using LockFile. Examples include database software locking portions of the database container affected by a transaction, e-mail clients performing an operation on a mail inside a mailbox file, et cetera.

This technique allows multiple processes/threads to access different parts of the file, however, when a process wants to access a portion which is used by someone else, it can either wait till the lock is acquired or fail.

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