Dear forum,

I am in desperate need of help here.

The situation:
At work, a colleague of mine has problems loggin into his account on the company server.
When he the computer, he tries to log in on the company domain, but it takes around 15 minutes for an error to pop up.
The error tells me about a file that could not be copied from the server to the computer.
The computers logs in, but it's like half the account starts. It's his name popping up, and he has access to some stuff. But a lot is missing.

The cause:
A few files, .tmp-files in a picture directory in his account on the server, are in use by a program. So they can not be deleted, moved, or renamed.
These files need to be removed. (Or at least no longer be "in use")
Only I don't know which program is using these files, or how I can shut it down.
I do know the program does not run on his computer, as my colleague has the same problem on any computer hooked up to the company server.

On a side note:
It is not an option to restart the server.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated! (And needed )

Cheers,
badboyd

some french made program that unlocks files.... something coloumb in the address

I've had luck with this on Windows, assuming it is Windows Server it may work:
http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/

I'll try an unlocker program. Thanks for the suggesting (and fast responds!).

But I'm not sure it will work. There seems to be a problem with right-clicking the files.
When we tried that today, windows explorer "crashed" and did not respond for 3 minutes or so. (tried multiple times)

Unlocker has a UI that you can go through if right clicking doesn't work.

Why not ask the company tech support? Isn't it kinda their job to figure it out.

Couple of things:

1. Servers should be rebooted on a regular basis (about once a week).

2. I'm not sure what kind of file he was attempting to copy, but files should always be stored on a networked directory that is backed up and never on hard drives of local computers.

3. You should be able to stop any server-side services that may be accessing those files using the management console and delete the files from the server.

4. Not being able to right click is usually a symptom of a bad context menu entry. This could be due to conflicting programming or a malware infection.

Wonderful!

Now... I just have to go to work tomorrow, to fix this... on my free day.

Any other advise would still be welcome. Somehow these things don't always go as planned.

1. Our system administrator is on vacation. But he probably reboots the server regularly.


2. He copied some pictures to his desktop. But every file stored on the desktop while you are on an account, is stored on that account. Meaning it will be copied to the server each time you log off, and copied to the local drive (documents & settings \ etc etc \ desktop) when you log on. This is also where the login goes wrong.


3. Again, our system administrator is not around. And I have no idea how to do this.


4. It might be worth to do a malware scan than. Thanks for the tip.

You guys let your admin take vacations? I'm pretty sure you are supposed to chain him to the server and give him Pop-Tarts under the door.

Yeah sure. Only for 3 weeks.
Been able to keep it together so far.

Yay, it finally works with 64-bit (last time I needed it, it didn't and had to use an alternative called LockHunter)


Make sure to do the following:

0.5 Try and contact the sysadmin. It's a sad fact that a lot of sysadmins will still troubleshoot while on vacation.

0.75 You should have also told your boss/immediate superior about the issue before trying to resolve it yourself

1. Use the portable version of Unlocker

2. Leave a detailed account for the sysadmin. If you have a ticket system in place, file a ticket before you do anything, add to the ticket what you did, etc.


It should be set to do automatic reboots. Sysadmin rule #3: Never do yourself what you can automate.


If you don't have any preinstalled, you best not add any. Most free stuff is specific in that it isn't allowed to be used on servers/in a commercial environment. Even if something is compliant, you run the risk of doing more damage than good if you aren't careful.


That only works for ~3 years, after which they burn out. Giving them vacation time makes them last over a decade!


Jeez, three weeks off all at once? And it's a one-man IT shop? He should have left some information to get in touch with a support vendor/contractor/consultant laying around somewhere. That long with no professional support isn't reasonable.

I saw this from work and was all "Want to reply sooo bad!" but I didn't bring my personal password database with me today

0.5: Sad indeed. But I can not contact him, his phone has little signal. We currently work with a system where I text him, and he calls me back when he can. Took him a day the last time

0.75: The sysadmin IS my immediate superior. And his superior is the manager, who is also on vacation for several weeks

2: Ticket system not yet in place, but I will write it down for him.


I think he needs to do it himself, because the whole company needs to know when they can not use the server at night or in a weekend.
Not sure though.

Thanks for the insight DEFRON.

Will let you guys know the result.

edit:
RESULT: It's working again. Some guy had experienced this problem before, and knew how to fix it. He logged into the server, and removed the files from there. He said "the root account on the server doesn't give a damn about files being used or not, it just removes". But he also said we had "unlocker" already installed on the server, in case his solution did not work.

Thanks everyone for the help