Seen this before? Of course you have. Sometimes it’s something simple. You try to delete a video file, forgetting that you have that same video paused somewhere in a minimized window. Close the player and you’re good.

   It’s not always that simple. You can close apps, and sometimes even reboot and still get this message. I began using Cedrick Collomb’s Unlocker several months ago. Sharing this very handy, very little util is far overdue.

Acquisition and Installation

   Unlocker is in version 1.8.5, and hasn’t had a release since the middle of 2006. However, it is far from stale, and works very well. I downloaded the less than 200k installer from the author’s site here.

  There are a huge variety of languages available, some I haven’t heard of. Being that I’m an American, are you surprised? By default, the explorer extension is selected. This is probably the best feature of the program. Leave it checked. It sets itself up to start with Windows automatically, but you can right click the tray icon and disable this feature easily.

Features and Use

   Unlocker, provided you left the Explorer Extension in place, sits quietly until needed. When you see the error, as pictured above, simply click OK, and Unlocker takes action with the information window.

   In most cases, you will be able to see the program that’s holding your file. You can either close the Unlocker window and take care of it yourself, or you can instruct Unlocker to handle it. Be careful, however, if you don’t recognize the application or program that has your file hostage, killing it MAY cause you new troubles. You’re on your own there:)

  Alternately, you can right-click on any file or folder, and Unlocker can tell you if anything is holding that file, and what/where they are.

System Friendliness and Uninstallation

   Unlocker uninstalled from ‘Add/Remove Programs’ in just a couple seconds. Considering it requested a reboot, I was dismayed to discover that it left it’s Program Files folder behind with a Dynamic Link Library inside keeping it company. It only amounted to about 19k, so little harm done. CPU and memory usage was negligible, with only about 3,000k held up by the Unlocker Assistant lying in wait for you to need it.

Wrap-up

Pros: Free, small, solves a small, irritating problem

Cons: uninstall not so clean, doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing any updates or Vista versions.

Conversation Tags: software, windows, utilities, freeware, shareware