Windows 2008 R2 - Kernel (System Process PID=4) is locking files and folders

file kernel locking windows-server-2008-r2 delete-file
Dani picture Dani · Dec 7, 2010 · Viewed 38.3k times · Source

Windows 2008 R2 - Kernel (System Process PID=4) is locking files and folders for a long time. For example when deleting a file, the file may remain locked for 1 minute or more and only after that be deleted. On another occasions I encountered files or folders I could not delete. ProcMon showed that the System Process was holding a handle to those resources for a couple of minutes and then released them None of the resources I mentioned were system resources, only files and folders installed be me and handled by my applications.

Answer

Maiku Mori picture Maiku Mori · Dec 29, 2010

As Dani has already mentioned in the comment:

It's a bug in Windows 7 and likely in Windows Server 2008 (possibly 64bit versions only). It surfaces when you disable Application Experience service.

Re-enabling this service has fixed this problem for me.

A bit more info here as to why it's causing a problem.

List of other SO questions which seem to be related:

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