Can't delete files because they are open in COM Surrogate

You should be able to kill the "COM Surrogate" task in Task Manager.

I just had this happen to me. It was an image file I was working on in a couple of different Adobe apps. One crashed as it was a large file and I suspect there was some data stuck in the system somewhere. It was still unable to delete even after a restart. What I did was just open the file that wouldn't delete. Make some simple edit. Save the file (not save as) and close the program... Then opened the file location and it deleted as intended. Hopefully you figured it out already, but maybe this will help someone with the same issue in the future. I hate when they suggest some BS app for stuff like this. That's how people get malware and malware causes COM surrogate issues...

A preview handler may have locked the file. Please turn off the Preview pane, set the folder view to Details, close Explorer, reopen it and delete the file. Does that workaround help?

Sorry, this was no help. And why do I need this ridiculous app. It wasn't broken, so why try to fix it.

It's definitely broken now.

It now says it's being used by Photo. but nothing is open on my computer.

I've TRYING (unsuccessfully) to clean up my files and backup. MS did something, my machine can't even open File Explorer without choking to death.

Horrible Updates.

You should be able to kill the "COM Surrogate" task in Task Manager.

That worked. Thank you!