Visual Studio Says "It is being used by another process" - ProcessExplorer Says "No Handle"

Question

I know this has been discussed a lot of time, but their answers did not help me.

When I build the project it gives the following error:

The process cannot access the file '..\MyProjectFolder\obj\x86\Release\MyProject.exe' because it is being used by another process.

What I've tried so far:

1. Closed Visual Studio 2010, and opened it again.
2. Opened task manager (as administrator), no process running, named "MyProject.exe"
3. Run SysInternals\handles.exe (as administrator again), there is no application having a handle to MyProject.exe. (strange!)
4. Run SysInternals\ProcessExplorer.exe, searched the process name, no handle. (how come!)
5. Killed the explorer.exe, and re-run. No luck.
6. Tried to delete the file manually, from command line. Same error (being used by another process).
7. Logged out and logged in, still the same issue.
8. Restarted the machine, yes it works, but not the desired answer :).

I'm really wondering the reason behind. This is the second time I experience this, I don't want to restart the machine again.

All aside, how come ProcessExplorer.exe or handles.exe not show the handle! I lost my faith..

Something very similar is discussed in the following links (even more!), but none of them helped me (or maybe I couldn't find the right one):

1. Run Visual Studio Debug. The process cannot access the file, because it is being used by another process
2. Visual Studio - Cannot build a simple project more than once
3. VisualStudio2010 Debugging - The process cannot access the file ... because it is being used by another process

Answer 1

Recently, while developing an SSIS package I got the error “The process cannot access the file ‘*.ispac’ because it is being used by another process”.

I spent several hours, searching the internet and trying various things --- this was the only thing that worked.

Go to Task Manager–> Details Tab. Locate the process “DtsDebugHost.exe“. Kill the multiple instances.`

Found this solution here:[https://community.dynamics.com/365/b/ajitpatra365crm/posts/ssis-the-process-cannot-access-the-file-ispac-because-it-is-being-used-by-another-process]

Answer 2

I have faced this problem, renaming the file (for example MyProject.exe to MyProject1.exe) will solve the problem.

You can automate the renaming in a pre-build event.

Thanks

Answer 3

If you have a VS project which is a windows service as part of your solution, and that service is running on your local machine, try stopping the service. We had this in one of our solutions and as soon as we stopped it, VS built straight away. Problem fixed.

Answer 4

You could try stopping the process in the Task Manager. Search for the name of the app you're building, it is probably running in the task manager. End it. This worked for me.