EMCO UnLock IT

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on July 05, 2011

Two questions: 1) Have you ever tried to delete or rename a file or folder, only to have your own PC tell you no, you can't do that because it's locked by another program or process? 2) Don't you have enough frustration in your life without software piling on? EMCO UnLock IT takes care of Question 2 by dealing with Question 1. It's freeware that can unlock files and folders that are locked by system processes or other programs when you receive an Access Denied error message. It does this by attempting to close any processes and services locking a resource or, if that doesn't work, prompting the user to terminate the process holding the resource hostage. That's handy if you're not sure where the file system fender-bender happened, but EMCO UnLock IT can save time by unlocking resources more quickly than you can do by the usual step-intensive methods. It can also terminate viruses, Trojans, and other hard-to-kill malware.

EMCO UnLock IT's attractive, colorful interface offers many skin choices via a skin chooser button on the upper border as well as the toolbar. The interface sports two tabs, Applications and Actions. We browsed to Program Files under the Applications tab, and UnLock IT displayed all running processes for the directory, their specific locations, and the Process Name and ID, Description, and Executable Path of any process locking the resource. Right-clicking any entry let us choose Close Handles, either All handles or File or Library, as applicable, or Kill All Processes, a more drastic step that prompted a warning message. We could also click Unlock Resource or Kill All Resources on the toolbar, as well as close handles and display process properties sheets via the Actions tab. We intentionally created situations in which we could not open or close a file or folder because it was locked by another application or resource. Normally, we'd track down the issue in Explorer, and UnLock IT offers a Jump to Explorer option, too. But UnLock IT gave a handy central overview that let us quickly free up locked resources. A clear, comprehensive, and detailed Help file answered all our questions.

EMCO UnLock IT simplifies the process of freeing up system resources being held hostage by other processes and applications. It's a powerful tool that should be used with care, especially when killing processes.

 

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Publisher's Description

From EMCO Software:

UnLock IT is a free utility used to unlock files and folders locked by applications or system processes. It can help you every time when you get an Access Denied error while trying to change, rename or delete files or folders, because they are locked. UnLock IT allows you to detect processes that lock a resource and unlock it by closing file and library handles to the resource. If the resource cannot be unlocked by these methods, you will be prompted to kill the processes that hold locks. The application can terminate not only regular applications and system processes but also viruses, trojans and other spyware processes that have a special protection from termination.

UnLock IT integrates into Windows Explorer, so you can launch it by selecting a corresponding item from the context menu for any resource. It gives you a one-click access to checking any resource for locks and unlocking it if required.

What's new in this version: Version 3.0.2 improved minor application performance.

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