Using C#, how does one figure out what process locked a file?

Question

In Windows, how do I determine (using C#) what process locked a file?

Third-party tools are helpful, but not what I\'m looking for.

Answer 1

I believe that you need code running in kernel mode to completely answer the question (but I haven't looked at the restart manager API).

You can enumerate all processes and their modules - so if the file you're looking for is a module (DLL, EXE, OCX...), you're good to go. But if it's a text file for example, you have to look at the kernel handle table which you cannot see from user mode. Handle.exe has a kernel driver in order to do that.