An attempt was made to access an exiting process

Question

We have a directory that we cannot delete because...

Cannot remove item C:\myDir: The process cannot access the file 'C:\myDir\' because it is being used by another process.

Inside Resource Monitor > CPU > Associated Handles, a search for myDir shows that cmd.exe is using our directory.

Inside Process Hacker, running as administrator, our attempts to terminate cmd.exe are met with this:

Unable to terminate cmd.exe (PID 4656): An attempt was made to access an exiting process.

Beyond restarting the computer, how else can we kill this process and thereby delete or rename our directory?

Solution

It must be an unkillable process. Try a Google search for [ unkillable process ], or check out the thread "How can I kill an unkillable process?" and the solutions mentioned there. Or, as you mentioned, you could restart the machine.

Comments

[DavidPostill]

You could try IObit Unlocker

[Shaun Luttin]

@DavidPostill IObit Unlocker did not work. I tried unlock and delete. Unlocker said, "Status: Unlock & Delete successfully." The directory is still there. Odd.

[DavidPostill]

Relevant: In windows, do file-locks stay after a process was terminated via taskkill?

[DavidPostill]

Looks like a restart is required then.

[DavidPostill]

You could also try LockHunter

[psusi]

Yep; Windows is bugged and won't let the process finish exiting so a reboot is the only way to get rid of it.

[Sanny]

try deleting in safe-mode.

[unforgettableidSupportsMonica]

The error message you saw, "An attempt was made to access an exiting process", is the MessageText for the MessageId STATUS_PROCESS_IS_TERMINATING, which is NTSTATUS 0xC000010A. All this is according to the "ntstatus.h" header file, which is included in the Windows SDK.

[Matt Vukomanovic]

I don't believe that this is a duplicate of the other question of which it is marked as a duplicate. They are different error messages and caused by different things. What tipped me off was that you were using Process Hacker (which is also what I was having a problem with). I closed and re-opened process hacker and the process had closed. So quite possibly it's worth doing that first. It's not the first time it had happened on my server which had a program running and process hacker running for at least a few months.

[Shaun Luttin]

In my question a duplicate of the answer to which you referred me?

[unforgettableidSupportsMonica]

Your question is indeed a duplicate of the unkillable-process question. But Jeff Atwood writes on the official Stack Exchange blog that some duplication is good, and I agree.