How to determine what has a lock on a particular file in Windows?

I see that a file has a lock on it. How could I find out the cause and root of this?

Solution 1:

Unlocker is a freeware utility that I have used many times for this purpose. Easy to use, right click on the file in question and it shows you which processes are locking it. You can then either kill those processes or forceably unlock all or one of the locking processes.

http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/

Solution 2:

Try the Process Explorer tool from Sysinternals. Also their Handle tool is a command line tool to find out what has a lock on something.

Solution 3:

From START > RUN type in "fsmgmt.msc" without the quotes.

This is the shared folders MMC and you can manage sessions here to see who has locks on particular files.

Edited to add:

You can also connect to your server (or another computer) with this snap-in by clicking on Action > Connect to another computer. You'll have to connect to the computer that the file exists on.