You don't have to be so bashful

I hate windows with a burning passion, but if you must use it then you should install Powertoys. Among the many useful utilities is file locksmith which will not only tell you what program is holding onto a file but also allows you to close it.

Edit: Also the "Awake" feature will keep your computer from falling asleep. Pair this with Caffeine.exe from Zhorn software (free download) and it will keep you green on MS Teams. One of the other useful features is the text extractor, which will capture any written text on your screen and copy it to your clipboard.

Agreed powertoys should just be installed by default
- PowerToys are basically functional tools that the Microsoft Engineers want to add but can't due to needing to convince the Product Manager that adding said functionality will increase the bottom line.
Sys internals also... So many useful features for free but you have to know to install
Yeah, back in my early pirate years as a teen, I downloaded a virus. I was able to sniff it out, and I deleted it. But after every restart the files came back. I eventually found that it had created a separate file that would run a script to check for the existence of the others, and replace them if they were ever removed. I tried to delete this file, and couldn't; their safety measure was to have that file always be referenced by something so it was impossible to delete. File locksmith was what made it possible to remove, and tattled on what program (yet another part of the virus) was keeping it open.
It's also possible to do this in the resource monitor in task manager without installing anything. I'm off Windows these days so I dont remember the particular steps.
Edit: Here are the steps:
Press Win + R, type resmon, and press Enter. This will open Resource Monitor.
Go to the CPU tab.
In the Associated Handles section, use the search box to enter part of the file or folder name.
The results will show which processes are using the file.
You can right-click the process and select End Process if necessary (be cautious when ending processes).
- particular steps
  Yeah, imma install PowerToys.
I did this exact thing yesterday and Powertoys told me no one was using the file. Now it will just exist forever because I gave up.
Obviously I deleted powertoys after it failed to help and now all I can be is glad that this isn't my main OS.
Also with the "always on top" powertoy feature, you can put a little Sharkle in the corner of your screen to keep you company!
- Forwarding this to my shark friend, thanks!

Kind of like dealing with your tax return

"You need to pay taxes"

"How much do I owe?"

"You need to figure that out but I already know the answer"

"Then tell me the answer and we can stop wasting time"

"No you have to guess"

"OK, I guess $100"

Two months later ... "You guessed wrong, the answer is $102"

In my country I don't need to file taxes at all unless I'm self-employed. As an employee I can do it voluntarily to profit from tax reduction for stuff the government has no data on, eg. how long my commute is.
Lol the forms are prefilled when I log in, I can make adjustments as needed, but for someone simply earning a salary, they're usually good to go as-is. Investments and other non-employment taxable income and deductions (like education, even drivers ed) are what would need manual input for an example.
I don't know if I'd ever want to live in a counter where this is not the case.
- It’s broken on purpose because the lobby for tax filing software bribes politicians. We even got as far as successfully building the while system that worked as you described and the bribers forced the government to shut it down and delete it, after all the work had been finished and paid for.
- It's really annoying. Basically, you get a W-2, which is a record from your employer about how much you earned, how much in taxes you've paid, etc. You load that into some software, and it walks you through the rest. The whole process takes like 30-45 min, and many software programs charge (FreeTaxUSA doesn't, so that's nice). And right when you think you're done, you have to do your state tax return, which is simple, but still asks you questions.
  It's unnecessarily complicated. Here's what my income looks like:
  regular job income
  bank account interest
  Roth conversions - basically make pretax retirement funds into posttax retirement funds
  That's it. All three report to the government, so they have all the info. The only time I'd had something the government doesn't is if I sold something via classifieds or started a lemonade stand with my kids or something.

    
- Delete Thumbs.db
- I can't
- Rename Thumbs.db to asdf
- Done
- Delete asdf
- Done

dafuk.jpg

Turns or Rename creates a copy if insufficient permissions.

Idk if its a toxic trait to give solutions even though no help was asked for, but I always used Sysinternals Process Explorer to find the culprit. You just search for the file that "is open" by another program, and voila, you can see what you need to kill in order to delete said file.
I haven't had this problem on linux though.

Which is what the error dialog should do for you. It does on Mac.
It isn't toxic to want to be helpful, especially on discussion boards like this. Someone who sees this post will get a benefit from your recommendation.

Me: Hey Linux can you ________ ?

Linux: OK, I trust that you know what you're doing. It's on you if it breaks something.

That's how a computer should work.

rm -rf /
You sure?
Yes.
Okeee-
- rm -rf /
  Were you sure?
  Ah, yes, the classic UNIX confirmation prompt.
Me: I'm going to remove the boot device
Linux: lol sure thing boss

It's especially fun in corporate IT.

"What do you mean user: [me] already has it open? I've never been in this folder in life, and I just rebooted!"

Or when it says it's open by a former employee with a disabled account.

If it's on a network share, you also can't rely on the normal tricks with process monitor and the like to look for locks locally.

It's one thing I'll praise about using office documents with OneDrive and (Azure based) Sharepoint in a well configured corporate setting: Microsoft finally caught up to Google Doc's collaboration functionality, and it handles "merge conflicts" fairly well for other file types (add the machine name as a suffix to the file name, keep both copies, and give a big warning message).

Sometimes if it was the last folder you had open the thumbnail file is still locked by explorer. Open a different folder with stuff in it then try deleting it again.

This is why I have trust issues.

Or

"oh I know which software is blocking it"
Can you close it?
"Nah, I ain't a snitch, go do it yourself"

lsof : I got you bro

Had this exact same problem a few nights ago! I used BCUninstaller to remove msys2 and couldn't delete the empty directory tree because some mystery program was supposedly using the empty folders.

I have to check and see if I can delete it now that I remember to do it.

In these situations, I use Unlocked to delete, move, rename, etc.