Strange (& trivial) issue

This is of little consequence to anything useful, but
I have an empty folder showing and when I try to delete it,
I'm told that's a no-no since it's in "use by another program"?
Of course I could ignore it but I'm curious. How do I
dump it?

On 3/20/2017 8:03 AM, Pfsszxt wrote:
This is of little consequence to anything useful, but
I have an empty folder showing and when I try to delete it,
I'm told that's a no-no since it's in "use by another program"?
Of course I could ignore it but I'm curious. How do I
dump it?


Get Unlocker from http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/. Install it.
Select but do not open the folder. Right-click and select Unlocker from
the pull-down context menu. The resulting Unloacker window will show
you what process is using the folder. You can then choose (1) Kill
Process (which might not be a good idea), (2) Unlock (which requires
that you first select the entry in the Unlocker window), (3) Unlock All
(which will unlock the folder without selecting it), or (4) Quit (which
leaves everything unchanged).

Note: Google's Chrome treats http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/ as an
unsafe Web site. Mozilla's Firefox and SeaMonkey will also treat it as
unsafe if Safe Browsing is enabled. The stie itself is safe, but it
contains links to other sites that might not be safe.

--
David E. Ross
http://www.rossde.com

Consider:
* Most state mandate that drivers have liability insurance.
* Employers are mandated to have worker's compensation insurance.
* If you live in a flood zone, flood insurance is mandatory.
* If your home has a mortgate, fire insurance is mandatory.

Why then is mandatory health insurance so bad??

Pfsszxt wrote:
This is of little consequence to anything useful, but
I have an empty folder showing and when I try to delete it,
I'm told that's a no-no since it's in "use by another program"?
Of course I could ignore it but I'm curious. How do I
dump it?

Try the "Handle" program from Sysinternals.

Unpack it, say, in your Downloads folder.

Open a Command Prompt window.

cd /d %userprofile% --- redundant, but anyway...
cd Downloads
handle.exe handle_out.txt
notepad handle_out.txt

In the Notepad window, do a search for the folder
that is stick, then see what process is "the owner".

That doesn't always work. It's possible to construct
a handle to something, where the owner is blank, and
basically, untraceable.

Paul

On Mon, 20 Mar 2017 10:03:55 -0500, Pfsszxt wrote:
This is of little consequence to anything useful, but
I have an empty folder showing and when I try to delete it,
I'm told that's a no-no since it's in "use by another program"?
Of course I could ignore it but I'm curious. How do I
dump it?

Follow these steps.

1. Download Process Explorer from Microsoft website.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx

2. Extract the ZIP contents somewhere in your harddisk.

3. Run the procexp64.exe/procexp.exe as administrator [Right-click Run as
administrator].

4. Click the binoculars toolbar icon, or select menu [Find Find Handle or
DLL...] on the main window.

5. In the "Process Explorer Search" dialog, enter the folder path into the
input box then press the "Search" button.

6. Click an item shown in the list.

7. Right-click on the highlighted item on the lower pane of the main window,
then choose "Close Handle".

8. If there are multiple items listed in "Process Explorer Search" dialog,
go to step 6. Otherwise, skip to step 10.

9. Go to step 5.

10. Delete the folder.

If you end up pressing the Search button more than 2 times, it means that an
application is actively using that folder. In this case, you'll have to
terminate the application process by right-clicking its item on the main
window, then choose "Kill Process".

FYI, if the application is the explorer.exe, it means that a shell extension
doesn't work properly. Most likely, a third party shell extension.

On 3/20/2017 10:03 AM, Pfsszxt wrote:
This is of little consequence to anything useful, but
I have an empty folder showing and when I try to delete it,
I'm told that's a no-no since it's in "use by another program"?
Of course I could ignore it but I'm curious. How do I
dump it?
You can go the route of trying to take ownership of it and then deleting
it but I usually try one of the following things first.

I usually try logging off and back on and then see if it can be deleted.

If that fails I reboot into the safe mode and try deleting it again
since most programs that might be keeping it open don't get started in
the safe mode.

Only if the first two methods fail do I go and start messing with
ownership and such. There are programs that will delete it for you but
many of those you download include extra trash or a virus and cause more
problems than they cure.

On 3/20/2017 1:26 PM, GlowingBlueMist wrote:
On 3/20/2017 10:03 AM, Pfsszxt wrote:
This is of little consequence to anything useful, but
I have an empty folder showing and when I try to delete it,
I'm told that's a no-no since it's in "use by another program"?
Of course I could ignore it but I'm curious. How do I
dump it?
You can go the route of trying to take ownership of it and then deleting
it but I usually try one of the following things first.

I usually try logging off and back on and then see if it can be deleted.

If that fails I reboot into the safe mode and try deleting it again
since most programs that might be keeping it open don't get started in
the safe mode.

Only if the first two methods fail do I go and start messing with
ownership and such. There are programs that will delete it for you but
many of those you download include extra trash or a virus and cause more
problems than they cure.

Regarding Taking Ownership, I use this approach on my w7 and w10
machines, it's very convenient and works great.

http://www.windowscentral.com/how-ta...enu-windows-10

On 3/20/2017 10:03 AM, Pfsszxt wrote:
This is of little consequence to anything useful, but
I have an empty folder showing and when I try to delete it,
I'm told that's a no-no since it's in "use by another program"?
Of course I could ignore it but I'm curious. How do I
dump it?


I just did a system restore and all was well.
I keep a fairly recent version of restore a all
times. Goofy I guess, but in this case it as handy.