issue : investigating Program holding up a file from Windows File Explorer

[pierrelabreche]

I frequently run into an issue where Windows File Explorer won't let me rename a file or folder. Instead, it throws an error saying the file is in use by another program—without telling me which one.
To resolve this, I use Resource Monitor to track down and terminate the process that's locking the file, following the steps outlined below.

Would you like help formatting the procedure itself too?

Press Win + R to open the Run dialog box.

Type resmon.exe and press Enter.

In the Resource Monitor window, click on the CPU tab.

Look for the "Associated Handles" section. You might need to expand this section to see it clearly.

In the search bar, type the name of the file that is locked (e.g., image.jpg).

Resource Monitor will show a list of processes that have a handle on that file. The "Image" and "PID" columns will tell you the name of the program and its process ID.

Once you've identified the program, you can right-click on it and choose "End Process" to close it, or simply close the program normally if it's a known application.

I got this:

2025-09-18 Alt_menu_acceleration_disabler.jpg (163.2 KiB) Viewed 1332 times

It seems that Alt_menu_acceleration_disabler is the program holding up the file.

After ending the process, I have been able to rename the file.

[jsachs]

Interesting --- I can't think of any reason AltMenuDisabler would open an image file or folder.

I was getting this error occasionally a while ago but not recently. I think it may also be an issue with Windows Explorer itself which was likely fixed by an OS update.