Deleting files and folders used by other processes on Windows

[tkondal]

Hi,

I have been looking into making my file cleaning script more
intelligent. The goal of the script is to delete everything on a
drive except for a couple of folders which are skipped by the script.
Recently, I noticed that some files where not being deleted because a
process was using them. Is there a recipe (needs to run on Windows XP/
2003) for doing the following (more specifically, I need a way to
determine which process is holding a lock on my file):


file=GetFilename();
bLock = IsThereAFileLockOnFile(file)
If (bLock)
{
process = GetLockingProcess(file);
TerminateProcess(process);
}
DeleteFile(file);



Thanks.

 

[brad]

Hi,

I have been looking into making my file cleaning script more
intelligent. The goal of the script is to delete everything on a
drive except for a couple of folders which are skipped by the script.
Recently, I noticed that some files where not being deleted because a
process was using them.

Try this:

try:
# Make the file's attributes normal so file can be
deleted.
win32api.SetFileAttributes(os.path.join(root, f),
win32con.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL)
# HKLM/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session
Manager/PendingFileRenameOperations
win32api.MoveFileEx(os.path.join(root, f), None,
win32con.MOVEFILE_DELAY_UNTIL_REBOOT)
except Exception, e:
print e

Upon reboot the file will be gone... careful though, this canl delete
any Windows system file too.