Windows find out which process is accessing a file

Beside the file name you will see who has it open and the Open Mode read only; read-write. If they don't need it open any more, you can right click on it there and click Close Session and that one file will be closed for that one user.

I believe you can see what users ahev what files open by using Computer management on the server:. I have tried Computer Management, but maybe I have something mis-configured as I do not see what I am looking for.

The server has two physical HDs - the local disk C: and another disk F: I have tested opening files on both drives, and none of the files show. The Shared directories the files are in do show under Shares, but nothing under Sessions or Open files. Edit: BTW, the users use terminal services to connect to the same server. They are not mapped to the drives from workstations.

And it seems we both missed the second paragraph of Steve's question. He's already looked in there and dosen't see them?? Tho I did notice in a test I did that the open files showed up just after they were opened but not some 5 minutes later.

Maybe there is some time limit on how long they show? I am using the Computer Mgmt on the server in question.

Downloaded and tried. The complete audit information about a file access is shown in a single line record. The event is highlighted, and all the audit information like who accessed the file, when and from which system is available in a single line record. This article covers the way to track file read events in Windows File Servers.

You also saw how to do it far more easily with Lepide File Server Auditor part of Lepide Data Security Platform which makes the entire process more quick and upfront. Thus, with our solution, you can easily track who reads files on your Windows File Servers. Download Lepide File Server Auditor. In This Article. Improve this question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Community Bot 1 1 1 silver badge. Neil Neil MichaelBest Search the link in the Wayback Machine to get a nicely formatted result, or to see the migrated version here.

Marc Marc 1, 2 2 gold badges 10 10 silver badges 15 15 bronze badges. On Linux this is not much of a problem since inodes are refcounted, so you can remove a file even if someone is holding it open. AndreasN AndreasN 2, 2 2 gold badges 23 23 silver badges 29 29 bronze badges. Mathias Mathias To get the process holding those folder or file, we can use these two utilities: Resource Monitor Process Explorer. For Windows 7 and above, you can use the built-in Resource Monitor.

Open Resource Monitor, which can be found By searching for resmon. Open Process Explorer running as "administrator" by running procexp. Type in the name of the locked file or other file of interest in the Search dialog box, then click "Search".

Partial names are usually sufficient.