I did some testing on my XP machine. I guess one moral of this story is not to have confidence in any Microsoft OS or file system behavior!

WinXP home does not work like I remember W2K Server working - but this was many years ago. Anyway the unlink doesn't work like I expected, at least not on my home XP system. What happens on XP server versions, Win 7 and others, I don't know and have no way to test. I only have one user who still runs W2K and I deal with this guy on a case by case basis. I lost a hard drive and dismantled my W2K system years ago.

I don't know about others, but for me it can become very confusing as to what works on what version of MS OS and NTFS file system versions.

I did investigate this issue a bit further and found that there is an XP utility InUse.exe which apparently can replace a file that is in use. Many installation programs register a "run once" program than runs during the next reboot and before Windows fully starts. Anyway, I figure that there is a way to do what I described, but not in the way that I described it, at least not on XP home. Ooops.

In reply to Re^7: Deleting or unlinking a file by Marshall
in thread Deleting or unlinking a file by Anonymous Monk

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