File LockSmith via commandline

[nutnutwin]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Thank you for creating this feature

I went through documents
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/file-locksmith
and found no info on how to unlock folder using commandline(CMD)

Scenario when this would be used?

to unlock folder using programming

for example, in LockHunter
https://lockhunter.com/

I can run in

C:\Program Files\LockHunter\LockHunter.exe "C:\Temp"
to unlock folder

Supporting information

No response

[jdfa]

It would be also useful for me.
I think outputting list of processes which is using current file is more important than killing some of them (taskkill can do that).

[pranavpa8788]

+1 Agreed

[mortl3000]

+1 would be also useful for me

[xaviercarmo]

+1, would also like this feature

[joehom0416]

+1

[simbarras]

+1

[David-Kyrat]

+1
Edit: not needed anymore, I switched to Linux. It was easier. Although I highly support the adding of this kind of power user toys to Windows.

[lwahonen]

See my comments in #28529

[PZan]

+1

[cow1337killer3]

Need this so badly. Sysinternals handle is a piece of junk and doesn't work.

[PolarGoose]

There are already existing console tools

• Sysinternals Handle. Note: it doesn't support Unicode file names. Take a fixed version from here
• Handle2

Don't they do what is asked?

[lwahonen]

The version I implemented has features like "wait until target process closes before returning", which is immensely useful in scripts.

[PolarGoose]

@lwahonen,

You can do that with a small PowerShell script:

param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
    [string]$PathToTheFileOrFolder
)

$handleInformation = & "$PSScriptRoot/handle64.exe" -accepteula -nobanner -v $PathToTheFileOrFolder
foreach($lockingProcess in ConvertFrom-CSV -Delimiter "," -InputObject $handleInformation) {
    Write-Host "Kill locking process: $lockingProcess"
    Stop-Process -Id $lockingProcess.Pid -Force

    Write-Host "Wait until the process is stopped"
    while (Get-Process -Id $lockingProcess.Pid -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
        Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
    }
}

Also, Sysinternals Handle is more reliable. When run from an admin, it uses a kernel driver, PROCEXP152.SYS, to get the locking information.

[cow1337killer3]

Also, Sysinternals Handle is more reliable. When run from an admin, it uses a kernel driver, PROCEXP152.SYS, to get the locking information.

Handle is actually very unreliable and often misses handles as well as has false positives. Meanwhile, PowerToys LockSmith actually closes more than necessary, but at least gets the job done.

[PolarGoose]

@cow1337killer3,

It is strange because Sysinternals Handle uses the same ntdll.dll calls as PowerToys LockSmith in non-admin mode.
Then, I think we need to find reproducible scenarios when they happen. Otherwise, we will chase ghosts.

Do you have any particular scenario that can be reproduced?

[cow1337killer3]

@PolarGoose

Yea sysinternals just doesn't work for this one use case (after unloading somebody elses' .dll for their Windows context menu handler). I searched for handles on both the file and its parent folder.

I wrote this to programmatically get all the handles. I also tried just using sysinternals directly and searching through the raw text... my function gives the same results.

function handles {
    $target = (get-item $args[0]).fullname.trimend("\")
    $location = (split-path -parent $target).trimend("\")
    
    $handles = ((((& "file-handle" "-a" "-v" | out-string).trim() -replace ' *\r?\n *',"`n") -split '\n\n')[-1]).trim() -split '\n'
    if($handles.count -eq 1 -and $handles[0] -eq "no matching handles found."){ return }
    
    $handles = $handles | convertfrom-csv | ? { 
        $_.type -eq 'file' -and $_.name 
    } | % { 
        $_.name = $_.name.trimend('\') 
        $_
    } | ? { 
        test-path -isvalid -literalpath $_.name 
    } | ? { 
        $_.name -eq $target -or $_.name -eq ($location) 
    }
    
    $handles
}


handles 'shell.dll'

[PolarGoose]

@cow1337killer3,

Have you tried to use Process Explorer Find->"Find Handle or Dll" ?

[cow1337killer3]

@PolarGoose Yea that seems to work too. But there's still no command line option to do it.