Release Windows File Share Locks

Files that are locked because they are open in another application are a frequent problem when I work on network shares. Windows will stop you from overwriting a folder because one file inside is theoretically open somewhere. Since somewhere is a pretty big place, it has always been hit or miss whether I could find the culprit or had to simply wait till the lock was released.

If you don’t have administrative access to the server, you can ask the administrator to do this.

Go to Start and Search for Computer Management. 

Open Shared Folders in the left column. Select Open Files.

Find the problem item in the list and right-click it to remove the session holding it open.