File Is In Use

A file can be "in use" for one of two reasons:

• The file is open by another process. For example, a document might be open by a word processing application.
• The file is "in use" by Windows. Files that are "in use" are typically programs (.EXE files) or dynamic link libraries (.DLL files) being run by the system. For example, you will get this message if you attempt to overwrite the program file of a program that is currently running. The solution is to extract to a different folder.

WinZip® will not let you overwrite or delete a file that is "in use" by the system because this operation could cause unpredictable results, including system crashes. Windows may read from files that are "in use" at any time, and does not expect these files to change. If the file has been overwritten Windows will not know the data has changed and can become confused.

If this message is issued during an Extract operation you can either extract the file to a different folder, or retry the operation after closing the program that is using the file.

If this message is issued while WinZip is trying to delete a folder or file you can either continue without deleting the folder or file (and delete it manually later on) or close the file in question and re-try the operation.