---
title: "[Cool Tool]Unlocker : Unlock Files/Folders without going nuts"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/15/cool-toolunlocker-unlock-filesfolders-without-going-nuts.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/15/cool-toolunlocker-unlock-filesfolders-without-going-nuts.html"
published: "2006-06-15T06:42:00"
updated: "2006-06-15T06:42:00"
tags: ["ASP.NET", "Cool Tools", "General Software Devel..."]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Jean Paul Boodhoo has a nice tidbit about a new free tool called Unlocker that helps detect and actually unlock \"locked\" files in Windows. You know, those ones that seem to be held by some unknown entity on your…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# \[Cool Tool\]Unlocker : Unlock Files/Folders without going nuts

By Roy Osherove June 15, 2006 In [ASP.NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/asp-net), [Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools), [General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel)

**Historical article** · Originally published June 15, 2006; technical details may be outdated.

[Jean Paul Boodhoo has a nice tidbit](http://www.jpboodhoo.com/blog/UnlockingFilesWithEase.aspx) about a new [free tool called Unlocker that helps detect and actually unlock](http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/) "locked" files in Windows. You know, those ones that seem to be held by some unknown entity on your machine.

[Process Explorer](http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html) is good to find that out, but [Unlocker](http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/) seems to have not only  better usability for this task (Simply right click on the file/folder and select "Unlocker"), it actually has more abilities and ways to make a file/folder unlocked (such as unloading a dll, which ProcessExplorer does not do, I believe).

![](https://osherove.com/img/wb/cf1bcf71_ccollomb.free.fr_unlocker_tutorial1.png)

Jean Paul adds:

_"It actually gets better though. If you try to delete a folder that has a lock on it, unlocker will automatically pop up and allow you to perform an unlock or a kill process._ _"_

Cool tool Indeed!

## More in ASP.NET

[All posts in ASP.NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/asp-net)

- Oct 14, 2006

    ### [Introducing Perf+ , A better perfmon](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/10/14/introducing-perf-a-better-perfmon.html)

- Jun 20, 2006

    ### [Four cool books to give away at today's C# user group](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/20/four-cool-books-to-give-away-at-todays-c-user-group.html)

- Jun 11, 2006

    ### [\[Cool Tool\] ASP.NET Enterprise Manager on Steroids: Ajax, Multiple DB types, And open source!](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/6/11/cool-tool-aspnet-enterprise-manager-on-steroids-ajax-multipl.html)

- May 22, 2006

    ### [Review - Automise: Automise almost anything](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/5/22/review-automise-automise-almost-anything.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/