The Process Cannot Access The File

Chances are you’ve had problems deleting a file before, particularly video files in older versions of Windows. The error message looks something like this:

Cannot delete [file]: It is being used by another person or program.
Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.

Or maybe you’ve had an application such as uTorrent giving you a message similar to this:

The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

If you’re playing that video file in Windows Media Player while trying to delete it, unplug your computer and give it to your neighbor’s 13 year old.

However it’s not always that obvious which process is keeping the file locked, and there are a few ways to go around finding the process or just unlocking the file.

• Restart your computer, in safe mode if necessary. That will prevent a great deal of processes to start which may be locking your file.
• Download and install Sysinternals Process Explorer – it’s a more advanced Task Manager which will show you which files are being used by which process.
• Download Unlocker – a small application which will try varies methods to delete your file.

If everything else fails you can always try to boot into a different operating system, including DOS, and deleting the file from there.