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====== Windows - Find what process is holding a file open ======

**Sharing violation** errors.

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===== Use the Resource Monitor =====

  * Open Resource Monitor, which can be found
    * By searching for Resource Monitor or resmon.exe in the start menu, or
    * As a button on the Performance tab in your Task Manager
  * Go to the CPU tab
  * Use the search field in the **Associated Handles** section
  * When you've found the handle, you can identify the process by looking at the Image and/or PID column.
  * Try to close the application as you normally would, or, if that's not possible, just right-click the handle and kill the process directly from there.


<WRAP important>
**WARNING:**  Be very careful with closing handles!

It's even more dangerous than you'd think, because of handle recycling - if you close the file handle, and the program opens something else, that original file handle you closed may be reused for that "something else."

And now guess what happens if the program continues, thinking it is working on the file (whose handle you closed), when in fact that file handle is now pointing to something else.
</WRAP>

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===== Use Sysinternals =====

To find a specific file, navigate to **Find -> Find Handle or DLL...**.

Type in part of the path to the file.

The list of processes will appear below.

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If you prefer command line, **Sysinternals** suite includes command line tool **Handle**, that lists open handles.

Examples:

<code>
c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "e:\" (finds all files opened from drive e:\"

c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "file-or-path-in-question"
</code>

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