There should be no open files if you're logged into a DIFFERENT account. You should now be able to both see and modify (add, read, write, delete) anything within the folder without NTFS security getting in the way. If it says you don't have ownership then tell me and I'll give you a step by step for that. The system should either either say you do not have 'ownership' of the object or it will begin changing the NTFS security settings which can take awhile. Then check the 'replace permission entries on child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects' box and press ok. Open the 'advanced' tab on the security window and make sure your account and/or the user group 'administrators' has 'Full Control'. If that doesn't show up then I can go through a step by step on how to fix that. Third, right click on the folder that is giving you problems and select 'security'. Select the 'view' tab, then check 'show hidden files and folders' Open 'Folder Options' under the 'tools' menu which can be found on the menu between 'favorites' and 'help'. Second, have explorer show 'hidden' files. It should tell you the version right there. any thoughts?Ĭlick to expand.First, what version of XP do you have (if you have vista then please tell us the version of vista)? Right click on 'my computer' and select properties. So I can move or delete files with a dos prompt or Nero's file browser for example. and it's always explorer locking them out.Īnother work around I've found is that alternate file browsers will typically not respect These arbitary lockouts. That's fine.īut it's saying things are locked that haven't been touched by anything in weeks. If I'm copying some big files and try to delete them it says explorer has them. If I have word open and try to move the word document it says that Word has locked the file. Unlocker makes it very clear which program is locking a file.

Really, what I'd like is for explorer to stop arbitarly locking files or for it to stop cheesing out on me when unlocker breaks the lockouts. That will clear the problem for about 5 minutes and explorer will behave itself. I can fix the problem by force quiting explorer and then reopening it with the task manager.īut I really don't want to do that 15 times a day.Īnother way I can fix it is by right clicking on the start menu and then opening perhaps 5 to 10 'explore all users'. The problem with unlocker is that if you do this to more then one or two files per boot, then explorer starts getting really flaky.įor example it could take 5 minutes to open one folder. So I got a program called 'unlocker' that breaks the lockouts on files so they can me moved again. For whatever reason Explorer has recently started locking files that aren't being used such that they can't be moved, renamed, or deleted.

Slow file explorer windows 10