How To Determine File Handle Ownership (232830)

The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.

SUMMARY

Have you ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer from Sysinternals is a GUI/device driver combination that shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

MORE INFORMATION

The display consists of two sub-windows. The top always shows a list of the currently active processes and the names of their owning accounts. The bottom window displays an additional information window based on the mode that Process Explorer is in.

In handle mode, the bottom window displays the handles of process selected in the top window. In DLL mode, the bottom window displays the DLLs that the process has loaded. The utility and additional information can be found at the following Web site:

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.