Request: Please don't restart explorer.exe when trying to unmount with in-use resources

Rikomenar

Member
NTLite tries to attempt some extra measures in the background to release in-use files when unmounting, it restarts explorer.exe without notification, this kills all open directories without any way of restoring them as Windows 10 explorer doesn't have "sessions" feature, etc.

Restarting explorer.exe is a last resort with several issues, but releasing resources usually not, at least that's my personal experience. Such a action in my opinion is an incredibly perverted which I have disliked throught the Windows history, it should always come with a prompt.

I'm speaking in general so I'm not blaming anyone directly, because it really makes no sense as it won't fix such problems in most cases so I think it may not be intended. The file/directory was open in several other programs including grepWin.

Once the resources were released, when I figured out what's going on, the unmount proceeded okay without restart.
 
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Funny to read this complain.. Be sure to don’t have open mounted directory, thats all. Or do you find any other needed explorer restart “bug”?

Btw option to suppress would be great, but from my findings its only bug created by end user.
 
Rikomenar, thanks for the info, however it should have restarted a session.
I'm interested how to replicate the issue and see what can be done, the very least not restart it, especially if not necessary.
Maybe an antivirus is scanning something inside it, do I open a mount directory with Explorer or?
 
Explorer repeatably closes on me whenever I run Remove Reinstalls (as one example). It happens when "Removing Defender" is showing in small text at the bottom left of the NTLite window.
 
This just started with me since the latest update, and now I can't seem to mount or unmount anything. I removed the mounted images folder, but NTLite still searches for it, and it can't seem to unmount "nothing" so it restarts explorer and fails. I keep getting "Detected file in use with the mount directory. Please retry when the resources have been freed, or cancel and reboot the machine." Well, the files were deleted, so how can they be "in use"?!?! I used to be able to "Forget directory" but that option appears to no longer be available. It seems NTLite is restarting a previous session, and I'd prefer at this point to start a fresh one. What command can I run to just unmount everything without doing an uninstall?
 
Deezul,
Rebooting and unmounting+forgetting an image must work.
If not, then try to run this in elevated command-line:
dism /Cleanup-Mountpoints

Reboot and try the initial procedure from the UI again.

If that doesn't help, try deleting subkeys here with regeding and retry from top:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WIMMount\mounted images

After that is solved, anything that comes to mind that could make the image busy, maybe using F-Secure antivirus?

pmikep, I saw your report about the half-explorer reset, and the situation is this:
- it is indeed tied to the Defender removal, Live/Deployed only, images are fine and the topic is about those actually, the busy files without an apparent reason.
- explorer reset works fine here, while I do remember needing to explicitly start explorer after the reset, to start the desktop/explorer.
However, when I did that, then 99.9% of users would complain why Explorer starts twice after a reset.
Will add a flag when Defender is removed, start it, otherwise rely on the normal restart of it.
Btw you can do it manually by ctrl+alt+del, task manager, file - run new task, just type explorer and OK.
 
This is a huge huge problem.

1/2/2021 12:04:50 AM Error: '[32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.' Read registry. If the problem is unexpected and persistent, please check manually for an update at the official website and try again with the newer version, or contact us on email.
 
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This is a huge huge problem.

1/2/2021 12:04:50 AM Error: '[32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.' Read registry. If the problem is unexpected and persistent, please check manually for an update at the official website and try again with the newer version, or contact us on email.
That doesn't look like the same issue, please attach %temp%\ntlite.log at that moment, maybe even start a new topic for readability.

Btw this topic is about unmounting a stuck image, and explorer reset which is automatic during the process.
 
Rikomenar, thanks for the info, however it should have restarted a session.
I'm interested how to replicate the issue and see what can be done, the very least not restart it, especially if not necessary.
Maybe an antivirus is scanning something inside it, do I open a mount directory with Explorer or?

I did had files open intentionally, I just didn't know it.

It was HxD, Programmer's Notepad or grepWin, one of them had some handles in either some file or directory which I forgot to close, happens when there's a traffic jam on the taskbar. Yeah the commenter is true that it's actually a user problem at it's root, but a honest mistake, in such case NTLite should show some mercy hehe.

I replicated it 3 times, it would restart explorer.exe 3 times and fail 3 times, so restarting won't help, but it may helped if explorer.exe really had a handle open in the mount directory.

Tho this is on an older installation host. Win10 Enterprise LTSB 1607 14393
 
Update:

I just updated NTLite to latest while I was away for 6 months, I had a mounted (but unloaded) Win7 from previously, I clicked Load but it proceeded to with the progress bar going backward, when it reached 0% explorer.exe got restarted killing all my explorer windows. NLite then loaded the image back up for editing without saying anything.

I have since reinstalled NTLite freshly with a renewed license.
 
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