Trying to delete a file on win 2000 server. Getting access
is denied. The source file may be in use. When I try to
rename the file, Cannot rename <filename>: Access is
denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write protected
and that the file is not currently in use. I know that if
I reboot the server I can delete the file. Don't really
want to take the system down. I shouldn't have to reboot.
Is there any work around for deleting locked files?

Matt,

I post a lot of messages here, in the past, about this problem and until now
I did not fin any solution. Here, is my discovers about it:

We have two Windows 2000 Servers with SP3. One of them are presenting a
well-known message, when we try to delete a folder: "Error Deleting File or
Folder. Cannot delete "folder": There has been a sharing violation. The
source or destination file may be in use."

I made a research through Newsgroups around the Internet and I found that
explorer.exe is locking that folder. People outhere tell us to restart
Windows and delete the folder, after logon. It works but it is very boring
to restart the computer every time we have a locked file or folder.

As an workaround to prevent a restart, I found a great free utility called
WhoLockMe (http://www.dr-hoiby.com/WhoLockMe/) for Win2K. WhoLockMe is a
little extension for your Microsoft Explorer. It permeets you to list all
the process locking your selected file. So I started to use it to unlock any
folder handled by explorer.exe, just killing its process.

Another way to delete the locked folder is setup Windows Explorer to open
the folder's windows in separate proccess (Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder
Options > View Tab > Advanced Configuration > Start the folder's windows in
.....). So, we close all Windows Explorer windows, open a new one and delete
the locked folder.

In both ways, we did not need to restart the computer.

I think this problem start after we apply Win 2K SP3, but the other Win 2K
Server did not presenting this problem. Indeed, I am suspecting of our
Microsoft Office 2000 Professional (brazilian portuguese) and of our Norton
Antivirus 2001. I am suspecting too of some files like SHELL32.DLL and
EXPLORER.EXE releases.

I do not know if that problem is the same described in Microsoft's Knowledge
Base Article 323045
(http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q323045) or the
older NT4.0 Article 165387
(http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;Q165387).

Another common error appears too: the Windows Explorer starts to show
incorrect icons in the left-window folder's tree, after some file and folder
manipulation, specially after file and folder deleting in the right side.
So, when we click the Up button on the Windows Explorer's toolbar a message
with an error. We click OK button and continue to browser the hard disk but
every opened folder show the same error message. The incorrect icon that
replace the yellow folder icon is one of the icons inside shell32.dll: an
white page with many blues stripes (simulating text) and a red "A" in the
bottom-right side of this white page. It is a common Windows icon but it is
replacing the yellow folders icons.

I think all these problems only were solved with Win 2K SP4. A few days a
go, I upgraded our trouble Windows 2000 Server with SP4 and the problems
still here!



"Matt" <(E-Mail Removed)> escreveu na mensagem
news:038801c37976$3386f410$(E-Mail Removed)...
Trying to delete a file on win 2000 server. Getting access
is denied. The source file may be in use. When I try to
rename the file, Cannot rename <filename>: Access is
denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write protected
and that the file is not currently in use. I know that if
I reboot the server I can delete the file. Don't really
want to take the system down. I shouldn't have to reboot.
Is there any work around for deleting locked files?