How to Find Out Which Windows Process is Using a File

Ever try to delete, move, or rename a file only to get a Windows system warning with something like one of these 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"

One of the best ways to handle locked files or folders is to use the free Microsoft program Process Explorer. Here is how to use it to find out what program, DLL, or handle is using a file or folder. You will need to run as administrator.

How to find out what program is using a file

In Windows 7 or 8, the system message may tell you what program is using the file. If it doesn’t or if you are using Windows XP, there is a simple way to find the program:

1. Open Process Explorer, running as administrator.
2. On the toolbar, find the gunsight icon on the right (shown highlighted in the figure shown below).
3. Drag the icon and drop it on the open file or folder that is locked.
4. The executable that is using the file will be highlighted in the Process Explorer main display list.

How to find out which handle or DLL is using a file

1. Open Process Explorer, running as administrator.
2. Enter the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F. Altenatively, click the “Find” menu and select “Find a Handle or DLL”.
3. A search dialog box will open.
4. Type in the name of the locked file or other file of interest. Partial names are usually sufficient.
5. Click the button “Search”,
6. A list will be generated. There may be a number of entries.
7. An individual handle in the list can be killed by selecting it and pressing the delete key. However, care is necessary when deleting handles, as instabilities may occur. Often, just rebooting will free a locked file.

How to Stop Google from Keeping a Record of Every Search You Make

Do you use Gmail, the Chrome browser, or other Google service? Then Google may be keeping a record of every search query you make. That’s right; if you have a Google account, Google may know everything you ever looked for on the web. That is, unless you turn off Google’s collecting of all your searches and clean out the web history they’ve kept. Here’s how.

Turn off Google Web History

1. Go to the web page https://history.google.com
2. Sign in to your Google account if you aren’t already signed in.
3. Click the gear icon in the upper right corner (example shown in figure on the right).
4. Choose “Settings”’
5. The page that opens contains the section shown in the figure below.
6. Click the button “Turn off” to stop Google collecting the data. If you change your mind, you can always turn Web History back on.

Delete items in Google Web History

1. Previously collected data will still be there. To remove it, click the link contained in the word “delete” in the sentence, “You can also delete all past Google search activity or remove particular items from your recent activity.” The link is hard to see and I have highlighted it in yellow in the figure. 
2. You will get a dialog box asking if you want to delete all items
3. Click the button “Delete All”
4. You can also delete only selected items by using the link contained in the phrase “recent activity” as indicated in the figure

What does Google do with this data? Why, they sell the information to advertisers, of course. Or maybe, they also give it to the government. Who knows?

Android/iPhone tip: How to wipe all your saved web passwords

Sure, it’s handy that your smartphone can remember and fill in usernames and passwords for your various web accounts. But it also means anyone else with access to your handset can log in to your most sensitive accounts, too.

Indeed, the more often you tap “yes” when your iPhone or Android phone asks “Would you like to save this password?”, the more saved passwords you have sitting in your pocket—and that could lead to big trouble if your precious smartphone ever lands in the wrong hands.

A good rule of thumb is to select “Never for this site” or “Not now” when your phone offers to save passwords for your most important accounts, such as your online banking site.

But what if you’ve already saved passwords for more sites than you can count?

In that case, you might consider starting fresh by wiping all the web passwords from your iPhone or Android phone’s memory.

You might want to think twice before saving passwords for sensitive online accounts on your iPhone.

For Android phones:

• Open the Browser application, tap the Menu button, select Settings, then tap “Privacy & security.”
• Scroll down to the Passwords section and tap “Clear passwords.” You’ll get one last chance to change your mind; if you’re ready to go ahead, tap the “OK” button.
• If you want your phone to stop asking to save web passwords, clear the check from the “Remember passwords” checkbox.
• For iPhone:
• Tap Settings from the home screen, then tap Safari.
• Next, tap AutoFill, then tap the “Clear All” button under the “Names & Passwords” setting.
• To keep your iPhone from saving any more passwords, flip the “Names & Passwords” switch to “Off.”

What to Do with a Hung or Unresponsive Windows 7 Program

Sooner or later it happens to all of us – a Windows program gets hung up and just sits there frozen. You can open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and try to close the hung program or use the command line to kill it. But sometimes you might want to see if you can find out why the program got hung up in the first place or you may want to try to unfreeze it. In that case, Windows 7 has just the system tool you need.

It’s called Resource Monitor and has many features. One of them is a way to troubleshoot programs that don’t respond. Here is how it works:

• Open Resource Monitor by entering “resmon” in the Start-Search bar. Alternatively, open Task Manager( keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Esc), and click on the "Performance" tab and then the button "Resource Monitor". 
• An example of the window that opens is shown in this figure. In the CPU section of the "Overview" tab, right-click the executable file of the hung application. The listing of the hung application will be colored red. 

• The context menu that opens is shown on the right. You can close the hung process from this menu or you can choose the entry “Analyze Wait Chain…” to see what other processes may be interacting with the hung program. If you know that an entry in the wait chain is not crucial you can try ending that process to see if it frees up the hung program. However, take care not to end a process that is vital to system operation. Ending a process here is not permanent, however, and rebooting the computer will normally restart everything.
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