Unlocker

Unlocker is a tool to get rid of those messages:

• Cannot delete file: Access is denied
• There has been a sharing violation.
• The source or destination file may be in use.
• The file is in use by another program or user.
• Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

When you have annoying message given by Windows like that...


Simply right click the folder or file and select Unlocker


If the folder or file is locked, a window listing of lockers will appear. Simply select the lockers and click Unlock and you are done!



WEBSITE / DOWNLOAD (192k, version 1.8.5, freeware)

Fantastic! That has been such an annoying problem!

Hey great news, i'm using 1.5. Time to update (although i did not notify any problems yet).

That is really sweet going to have to try that out next time I get that problem.

Updated topic with new version.

Updated topic with new version.

Updated topic with new version.

Thanks sn0wl for the update info. Great tool.

Thank you !

Is there a way to update from a older version to a newer version without having to uninstall, reboot then install?

I just installed over an old version without doing anything.

Sometimes it will claimed that a file can't be replaced and you have to use unlocker to unlock it.

Updated topic with new version.

Updated topic with new version.

Unlocker 1.7.6 - December 18, 2005

What's New:

· New language: Arabic thanks to Abdullah-Ali
· New language: Catalan thanks to David Rodriguez Teba
· New language: Croatian thanks to Tomislav Tomecic
· New language: Persian thanks to Mohammad Ali 'Profesor' Mokhtari
· New language: Swedish thanks to Konrad Viltersten
· Changed the way the driver is loaded to reduce the problems linked with services
· Improved installer comparing the MD5 of UnlockerCOM.dll if already installed to eliminate unecessary reboots

Updated topic with new version.

Updated topic with new version.

Unlocker 1.7.9 - February 04, 2006

- Improved Installer: Now Unlocker should install well over the previous version without needing to reboot
- New functionality: Unlocker -H or Unlocker -? shows the command line usage
- New functionality: Command line option to generate a log of handles found on a given file
- Fixed bug: Fixed a potential page fault bug in UnlockerDriver5.sys
- Fixed bug: Fixed a bug which caused the locked dll not to appear when right clicking on the root of a drive

Unlocker 1.8.0 - February 18, 2006

- New feature: Unlocker Assistant. Unlocker Assistant stays in your system tray bar and automatically launches Unlocker if you are trying to delete/rename/move a file that is locked. So for those who use Unlocker Assistant, no need to right click files or folders anymore. This feature can be deactivated during the install.
- New language: Indonesian thanks to Edi Gunawan Liu

Updated topic with new version.

the only problem i have is that every time i deleted "msn gaming zone"(empty and useless folder-.-) and "pinball" (out of windows nt folder) it gets recreated when i restart my computer...

Probably Window's or file protection system or whatever it is called replaces them. Could be MSN itself that is creating the msn gaming zone folder.

It's a protected folder. SFP recreates it.

so what should i do so it doesnt get recreated?

You would have to disable SR in registry, but that renders the whole XP stability concept worthless.

It's actually System File Checker (SFC) you have to disable which is part of Windows File Protection (WFP) and not System Restore (SR) which is unrelated and it depends on what version of Windows XP you have as only Windows XP with no service packs aka Build 2600 is registry hack. Service Pack 1 and newer requires way more than that.

Registry Settings
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
Value Name: SFCDisable
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: 0 = enabled (default), ffffff9d = disabled

Windows XP
Change the value of "SFCDisable" to equal "ffffff9d" to disable WFS or "0" to enable it. The other valid hexadecimal values are:
1 - disabled, prompt at boot to re-enable
2 - disabled at next boot only, no prompt to re-enable
4 - enabled, with popups disabled
ffffff9d - for completely disabled
Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Windows XP (Service Pack 1)
Make a backup the SFC_OS.DLL in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory.
Make an additional copy of SFC_OS.DLL called SFC_OS1.DLL and open it in a hex editor.
Windows XP (Service Pack 1)
At offset 0000E3BB (0E3BBh) you should find the values "8B" and "C6".
Do not continue if you are unable to find these values.
Change the values "8B C6" to read "90 90" and save the changes.
Run these commands to update the system files:
copy c:\windows\system32\sfc_os1.dll c:\windows\system32\sfc_os.dll /y
copy c:\windows\system32\sfc_os1.dll c:\windows\system32\dllcache\sfc_os.dll /y

If you are prompted to insert the Windows CD, click Cancel.
Restart Windows for the change to take effect.
Once these files have been updated apply the registry setting above.

Updated topic with new version.

Unlocker 1.83 2006-05-06

# Change Log

Unlocker 1.8.3 - 06/05/2006

- New feature: Unlocker Assistant icon can be hidden from the notification area.
- Improved UI: Better error message in case there is a conflict with Unlocker Assistant.
- Fixed bug: UNC and network paths should now work as intended.
- Fixed bug: Strong delete works again. This bug appeared in version 1.7.7. Index.dat and many more should be deleted without rebooting as before now.
- Fixed bug: Unlocker Assistant will detect if it is already running and will only run one instance.
- Fixed bug: Unlocker Assistant will detect if there a program conflicting and properly exit

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/#changes

Unlocker 1.8.4 - August 24, 2006

- New language: Belarusian thanks to Aleg Azarousky
- New feature: Access to Delete / Rename / Move options from command line
- Improved behavior: Power users do not need rights to modify registry anymore to run Unlocker as long as Unlocker was installed by an administrator on the machine
- Fixed bug: Renaming now works again.
- Fixed bug: Renaming and Moving on boot now work again.

Unlocker 1.8.5 - September 07, 2006

- New feature: Copy locked file. There is a new drop entry in the drop down menu which allows you to copy a file which has a handle opened. Very useful to copy .ncb files opened by Visual Studio for example.
- Improved UI: Unlocker Assistant is now multilanguage. Thanks to RDPK7 (Bulgarian), Jiun-Liang Lin (Chinese traditional), Toma Bendasek (Czech), Hoder Balder Marcus Jensen (Danish), Raphael Fetzer (German), Javier L. (Spanish), Tuukka Rantala (Finnish), Ilya Dan (Hebrew), DirektX (Hungarian), Marco D'Amato (Italian), Catbaron (Japanese), Dae-Seok Kim and Kim JaeGeun (Korean), Tommy Skaue (Norwegian), Marcin Wawer (Polish), Rhadoo (Romanian), Dmitry Yerokhin (Russian), Emperror (Slovak), Egzon Beqa (Albanian), Pruthisith Prateepavanich (Thai), Aleg Azarousky (Belarusian), Aleksander 'Quattro' Hropot (Slovenian), Igor Gubaidulin (Lithuanian), Ozzii (Serbian), Adis Imamovich (Bosnian), Mihkel Tonnov (Estonian), Oleksandr 'FLAGER' Sokolnik (Ukrainian)
- Fixed bug: Denied access issue when selecting several files.
- Fixed UI: Fixed many languages problems.

This is the good version, I released a wrong version earlier today without Estonian and Ukrainian.