Find out who is locking a file on a network share

Question

Just in case someone looking for a solution to this for a Windows based system or NAS:

There is a built-in function in Windows that shows you what files on the local computer are open/locked by remote computer (which has the file open through a file share):

• Select "Manage Computer" (Open "Computer Management")
• click "Shared Folders"
• choose "Open Files"

There you can even close the file forcefully.

On Windows 2008 R2 servers you have two means of viewing what files are open and closing those connections.

Via Share and Storage Management

Server Manager > Roles > File Services > Share and Storage Management > right-click on SaSM > Manage Open File

Via OpenFiles

CMD > Openfiles.exe /query /s SERVERNAME

See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490961.aspx.

PsFile does work on remote machines. If my login account already has access to the remote share, I can just enter:

psfile \\remote-share

(replace "remote-share" with the name of your file server) and it will list every opened document on that share, along with who has it open, and the file ID if I want to force the file closed. For me, this is a really long list, but it can be narrowed down by entering part of a path:

psfile \\remote-share I:\\Human_Resources

This is kind of tricky, since in my case this remote share is mounted as Z: on my local machine, but psfile identifies paths as they are defined on the remote file server, which in my case is I: (yours will be different). I just had to comb through the results of my first psfile run to see some of the paths it returned and then run it again with a partial path to narrow down the results.

Optionally, PsFile will let you specify credentials for the remote share if you need to supply them for access.

Lastly, a little known tip: if someone clicks on a file in Windows Explorer and cuts or copies the file with the intent to paste it somewhere else, that act also places a lock on the file.

If its simply a case of knowing/seeing who is in a file at any particular time (and if you're using windows) just select the file 'view' as 'details', i.e. rather than Thumbnails, tiles or icons etc. Once in 'details' view, by default you will be shown; - File name - Size - Type, and - Date modified

All you you need to do now is right click anywhere along said toolbar (file name, size, type etc...) and you will be given a list of other options that the toolbar can display.

Select 'Owner' and a new column will show the username of the person using the file or who originally created it if nobody else is using it.

This can be particularly useful when using a shared MS Access database.

The sessions are handled by the NAS device. What you are asking is dependant on the NAS device and nothing to do with windows. You would have to have a look into your NAS firmware to see to what it support. The only other way is sniff the packets and work it out yourself.

Partial answer: With Process Explorer, you can view handles on a network share opened from your machine.

Use the Menu "Find Handle" and then you can type a path like this

\Device\LanmanRedirector\server\share\

sounds like you have the same problem i tried to solve here. in my case, it's a Linux fileserver (running samba, of course), so i can log in and see what process is locking the file; unfortunately, i haven't found how to close it without killing the responsible session. AFAICT, the windows client 'thinks' it's closed; but didn't bother telling the fileserver.