Windows Event Viewer holds a lock on my EXE file
I released the lock this way:
- Start -> Services
- Locate Windows Event Log
- Right click -> Restart
I just met same problem. The DLL was locked by svchost.exe process (Windows Audio, DHCP Client, Windows Event Log, TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, Security Center, Task Scheduler)
Solution: close Event Viewer! :)
There's a less known feature introduced in Vista called Restart Manager that can help you release file locks via a user-mode code. Since you tagged it as C++, based on this article here's a small code sample to do that:
#include <RestartManager.h>
#pragma comment(lib ,"Rstrtmgr.lib")
BOOL ReleaseFileLock(LPCTSTR pFilePath)
{
BOOL bResult = FALSE;
DWORD dwSession;
WCHAR szSessionKey[CCH_RM_SESSION_KEY+1] = { 0 };
DWORD dwError = RmStartSession(&dwSession, 0, szSessionKey);
if (dwError == ERROR_SUCCESS)
{
dwError = RmRegisterResources(dwSession, 1, &pFilePath,
0, NULL, 0, NULL);
if (dwError == ERROR_SUCCESS)
{
UINT nProcInfoNeeded = 0;
UINT nProcInfo = 0;
RM_PROCESS_INFO rgpi[1];
DWORD dwReason;
dwError = RmGetList(dwSession, &nProcInfoNeeded,
&nProcInfo, rgpi, &dwReason);
if (dwError == ERROR_SUCCESS ||
dwError == ERROR_MORE_DATA)
{
if(nProcInfoNeeded > 0)
{
//If current process does not have enough privileges to close one of
//the "offending" processes, you'll get ERROR_FAIL_NOACTION_REBOOT
dwError = RmShutdown(dwSession, RmForceShutdown, NULL);
if (dwError == ERROR_SUCCESS)
{
bResult = TRUE;
}
}
else
bResult = TRUE;
}
}
}
RmEndSession(dwSession);
SetLastError(dwError);
return bResult;
}