Windows – How to determine what files are being locked/read/written by a process in Windows

processwindows

  1. In Windows if I want to check what process is using a file I can use programs such as Process Hacker and its search function to type the name of that file.

    From the information it provides I know a process is doing something with that file but I don't know if it locked it, or if it's just reading it or writing on it. How can I get that information?

  2. More important, what about the opposite?
    I want to find the name of the files being locked or written or read by a process.

    How can I do it?

In the following screenshot you can see how easy is to find the process name from the file name, but how can I find the name of the files used by a given process?

enter image description here

In this example I'm using Acrobat to open a PDF file called eemeir.pdf, but this doens't get listed on the Acrobat process tree.

With Process Explorer is the same:

enter image description here

PD:
@user173724 suggested how to do it using Process Explorer, and I've also found how to do it with PH:

I need to select the option “View -> Window” and a very large list of information appear.

But it's very ugly and not comfortable to find anything there (the same goes for Process Explorer), it doesn't have a search function in this section.

Also Right+clicking on a “Process -> Properties -> Handles.”

Best Answer

There is a Microsoft utility called process explorer that is like task manager on steroids. Clicking on a program listed shows all files being accessed, and it's search function allows you to find what program is accessing a file.