Upgrading TortoiseGit - Close Windows Explorer

Question

There is a hotfix version of Tortoise Git and my PC refuses to install it. It keeps saying Windows Explorer is running, even when it is not showing the Task Manager.

Is there any other way I can get this upgrade to install?

Update

I decided to start Windows 10 in Safe Mode so we can be sure that nothing is running. Yet it still would not perform the upgrade (with Administrator privileges):

I used Task Manager and I could not see gitdll.dll in the list of running processes.

Answer 1

1.download hotfixes

2.restart windows (don't open any apps after restart)

3.run Task Manager (from windows bar)

4.run hotfix from menu of Task Manager -- File -- Run new task

Answer 2

I have the same issue; I solved it by running:

listdlls64 -d "c:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin\gitdll.dll"

and used task manager to manually kill all processes that were using the dll, including explorer.exe. This seems entirely unnecessary but it's what worked for me.

Why so many processes (including LogonUI.exe, OpenWith.exe, splwow64.exe, etc.) attached to gitdll.dll, is unknown, and seems like an issue that can be solved. We know that explorer uses that dll, but you would think the installer/updater would expect that and be able to work around it.

Answer 3

In 2.10.x hotfixes there was a bug in the hotfix updater which was unable to offer a restart for replacing gitdll.dll during a restart cycle. A failure to replace this file caused lots of crashes (cf. https://tortoisegit.org/issue/3599).

Please download the full installer for TortoiseGit and install it (https://tortoisegit.org/download/; there might be a warning regarding a possible downgrade, this can be ignored).

Generally

The .MSI installer and newer hotfixes offer two options when installing:

1. Try to restart open processes - this might fail as described in https://stackoverflow.com/a/61026137/3906760 based on some third-party software.

2. Requiring no closing/restart of open programs but the replace the file on reboot. This should work in any case because the file is replaced before starting any programs using it.