Using SysInternals ProcessExplorer to find the cause of “access denied” error

Often when you try to rebuild your project or even just delete or rename a file, you get the “access denied” error. For example, I run my application from the command line and while it runs I try to rebuild it in Visual Studio:

Such “access denied” issues are also caused by system services like for example name-it-source-control caching service. You just can’t delete your files becase a service locks them.

One of the simplest ways to locate the true culprit – the application or the service which locks the access to the specified file/files – is to use the ProcessExplorer from SysInternals.

In PE, just navigate to Find/Find Handle or DLL. ProcessExplorer will find out and show the list of processes which have active handles to your file:

The example demonstrates the situation described at the beginning – the cause of the access denied to ConsoleApplication55.exe was the ConsoleApplication55.exe process running in the operation system. However, you can expect other valuable findings, like for example the TSVNCache.exe.