How to get the open files together with the locking indications for locally opened files?

Question

Setup as follows:
Windows 2019 RDS with users running a flat file databases ERP directly from local drive.

We cannot get the list of open files through Computer Management -> Shared Folders -> Open files, so we do not know which user has which files open and cannot see which user has “locked” (# of locks) a file.

We tried Nirsoft’s OpenedFilesView (https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/opened_files_view.html) which gives us the open files BUT WITHOUT the Locking information.

If we share the local disk and run the ERP through UNC path or via drive mapping, computer management -> open files gives us the needed info but since everything is stored on a local disk, it is not a good approach to make the files open through the network stack, speed and stability wise.

So, what else can we do to have the open files together with the locking indications?
Is the a registry tweak?
Is there another tool to give us the needed info?

Answer 1

Hi,

If you would not like the user to open the file via UNC path or via drive mapping, it seems there is no better solution to have the open files together with the locking indications.

But you could check below link, in which audit policy could be enabled to show who opened/handled a file in Security Logs.

How can I check who last opened a file?
https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/how-can-i-check-who-last-opened-file

Hope the information helps.

Thanks,
Eleven

Answer 2

Hi Eleven,

Since we would like to have a real time indication of all open files and locks, in an environment that many users open the same files in shared mode, the event log solutions is not feasible.

If we run the ERP that opens the files through UNC or Drive Mapping, we will have Computer Management -> Shared Folders -> Open files displaying the needed info BUT we have seen major file corruptions issues with remote desktop users connecting on the same server where the mapping and the file share is.

We've seen that happening on a 2012r2 server in workgroup mode. All internal LAN workstations had a mapping to the file share and worked flawlessly. Only one remote desktop user that was connecting via RDP on the file server, which had a mapping on the file share, caused intermittently some files to become 4GB large and corrupted.

We also had a similar issue on a Win 7 Pro PC without RDP getting in the way. The ERP Data were on the c: drive but for some legacy reason we had shared the ERP folder and a drive mapping on the share. When we run the ERP from the drive mapping, intermittently some files became corrupted.

In both cases when we deleted the drive mapping and adjusted the ERP to run directly from the local disk, the issues dissapeared.

So, if we could run the ERP through drive mapping this would solve our open files & locking indication problem but we have to be sure that we have no file corruptions while doing it. Do you have any idea on how to avoid them in such setups?

Answer 3

Hi,

We suggest that you could contact Microsoft Customer Support and Services to further investigate the root cause of file corruption issue so that you would get a more satisfying explanation and solution for your requirement.

You may find phone number for your region accordingly from the link below:

Global Customer Service phone numbers
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4051701/global-customer-service-phone-numbers

Thanks,
Eleven