How can I find out who is using a "file in use"?

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I often need to know which users are using a file located on a server. Once I know who thay are, I can phone then to close it, or in their absence, I would like to be able to close it. (winfile had this feature, unfortunetly it doesn't work with win2K)

This is probably a bit late for you, but saw your question about how to determine what files are open on a network server, so that you can shutdown without files still open. I've had this issue too, and just discovered how to solve it... at least in WIN98.

Double click on Network Neighbourhood on your desktop
R-click on the Server name, and choose properties
Click on the Tools tab
Click on Net Watcher

and there you can see a list of all files open

Hope this helps
David

I can tell you why the system is 'using' the movie file (or other large media files). By default, windows attemts to preview the file in the open window. In the case of a large file, or (in the case of Microsoft codec encoded mpeg/avi files) the file has to be locked for the preview to work. Turn off preview of multimedia files in the explorer options.

"The only way I could do it was to first kill explorer.exe process using Task Manager and then rename the movie file using command prompt. After that you can run explorer.exe again."

How the heck do you use the command prompt?? Once you get rid of explorer, everything disappears.

Easily.. Keyboard shortcuts would still work:
[windows key] + R
cmd

voila, command prompt!

Thank you for the clues. Using SysInternals' tool allowed me to find out that it was the infernal MusicMatch program mim.exe that had its mitts on my external disk, not allowing me to "Safely Remove Hardware". I just searched for "e:" and the finger pointed.

I try to edit an MP3 Tag using the advanced properties tab in Windows XP and I keep getting an error that says "Change to summary properties could not be saved. The file is in use by another application." I have tried to use your your suggestions and the program Process Explorer listed in this article with no success. If I don't know the name of the actual file that is in use, how do I do a search using this program. What am I missing. Please help, Thanks. MC

I FOUND THIS FILE (something I assume I downloaded and saved), but I have no idea what it is for: LEO_ Setup - OUTLOOK.EXE
After going through several internet searches, I arrived at your web site and it seems plausible that I may have found it here. I don't know and I hesitate to open the file, as I don't know what it is. Do you recognize it? Thanks

I do not recognize it. Not sure at all what it might be.

Hi, the other day I noticed the my MSN messenger no longer had my conversations from a couple of months ago saved. So I tried to see if I could restore them. When I ran the system restore I noticed that my web cam software I had just installed two days ago was no longer installed. So I tried to install it again but the installation would freeze all the time. My antivirus wouldn't work either. Anyway, I ran the system restore back to the day after I had my web cam installed. The antivirus and cam were working again, but everytime I started my computer a window would pop up saying that there was a run error with one of my web cam's software because it was missing a"-" on the app id. I tried to uninstall the web cam but it wouldn't do it completely. It wouldn't erase the one software with the running error. Anyway, I ran the restore again and had to re-install my anti virus. I also tried to defrag my computer and when it came to 50% it said it couldn't defrag some files. The computer does not accuse having the web cam installed right now, but I don't know that if I try to re-install it I'll run into the same problem again. Also, could it be that the disk defragger is not defragmenting all the way because of all the problems I had above? What do I do?

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