Releasing a file

[Yevgeny Efter]

Hello! I have a strange question... I want to write a program that releases files that are in use by something I don't know... Actually, I don't know where to start... If someone could help, I would be very thankful... Thanks in advance!

[Dave Kreskowiak]

First, you can't do that. The main reason is you don't control the file handle. Second, you can't clean up the resources in the app that has the file open in the first place. You'll only cause whatever app that is to crash because its file handle disappeared unexpectedly. Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic

[Judah Gabriel Himango]

Firstly, chances are you won't be able to do this solely from the .NET framework. You'll probably have to dip into the Win32 API to find out which processes have loaded a particular file handle. That's where you'll want to start, see how you can get that information from the Win32 API. Like Dave said, you couldn't really "unlock" the file. You could terminate the process that owns the file handle, if you can find out which process owns a particular file. And I don't know whether or not that's possible...I would guess it is, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to say.