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vista locking files

Ruz
polycount lvl 666
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Ruz polycount lvl 666
this is driving me nuts. I have a little unlocker program , but even that is a pain.

Is there any way just to stop vista lokcing files.

for example I make a head texture in pshop, save it, it gets loaded in max, then

max will lock it or explorer will lock it so I can't save over it.

some times a file will get locked by zbrush, max , pshop and explorer.

what a fukking annoyance

Replies

  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    Ah, there is a program named unlocker that unlocks stuff in win xp x86, (probably the one you're talking about, too). I was trying to use it on my windows (xp x64) but it only works on 32 bit versions or somethingl ike that, unfortunately.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    yeah thats the one. but why the hell does vista do this anyway.

    it costs me hours messing around each day.

    Vista is so slow that even right clicking takes about 5 to 7 seconds
  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    Dude you shouldn't have goe to vista in the first place. I was contemplating the jump to vista because of my need to go for a 64 bit OS, and I made a thread here about win xp 64 and almost everyone told me to go for that, so here I am. Best damn windows I've used tbh.

    I guess if you have the patience for dicking around with installing/uninstalling OS's you could try the Windows 7 beta, there are being said good things about it.
  • 00Zero
    ive been using vista for over a year and a half now. at home, and at work. ive never encountered this problem. theres nothing wrong with vista i hate when people blame vista for everything.
  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    Yea I've never heard of this problem before and I've been using vista for over a year too.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Hey 00Zero and Yozora, both of you not having these issues is not going to make Ruz's magically disappear you know.

    Ruz, is your machine taken care of by an admin? If so you could try and ask him to remove/disable all the useless stuff running in the background, that might take care of the right click issue. It seems like messy little services are spreading like crazy now : google update, apple update, adobe update, itunes thingie... It's crazy and seems to get worse each year.

    As for the file lockup, I dont get it that much now but I do have an unlocker when it happens, it's such a relief. Maybe you need stronger admin rights?

    Good luck with that, it really is a pain. Somehow I don't really believe 7 to be 'not so bad'. Can't wait to hear more reports from power users like you and game artists in general. Like, Vista might be 'good enough' for many users, but the OS losing the folder display settings EVERY DAY is truly not acceptable in a work environment. We kindof gave up figuring out this one with the IT guy at work.

    Also to prevent explorer issues you could try Xplorer2, it's quite solid.
    http://zabkat.com/

    I want to try XP64 too. Is it possible to find it legit for cheap?
  • 00Zero
  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    pior wrote: »
    Hey 00Zero and Yozora, both of you not having these issues is not going to make Ruz's magically disappear you know.

    Ruz, is your machine taken care of by an admin? If so you could try and ask him to remove/disable all the useless stuff running in the background, that might take care of the right click issue. It seems like messy little services are spreading like crazy now : google update, apple update, adobe update, itunes thingie... It's crazy and seems to get worse each year.

    As for the file lockup, I dont get it that much now but I do have an unlocker when it happens, it's such a relief. Maybe you need stronger admin rights?

    Good luck with that, it really is a pain. Somehow I don't really believe 7 to be 'not so bad'. Can't wait to hear more reports from power users like you and game artists in general. Like, Vista might be 'good enough' for many users, but the OS losing the folder display settings EVERY DAY is truly not acceptable in a work environment. We kindof gave up figuring out this one with the IT guy at work.

    Also to prevent explorer issues you could try Xplorer2, it's quite solid.
    http://zabkat.com/

    I want to try XP64 too. Is it possible to find it legit for cheap?

    Someone posted this on my xp64 thread :
    I was just about to post to this forum with the exact same question!

    I'm making the jump to 64-bit and the only question has been Vista or XP... I'm leaning toward XP 64-bit. The biggest issue right now is I'm having a hard time finding it for sale online.

    I found this...

    http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows-SP2C-System-Builders/dp/B000R46PN0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1228169392&sr=8-1

    But I don't understand what the real difference is. "for System Builders" seems to mean I can only install it on one PC, which is all I was going to do anyway. So if I want to run XP 64 bit can I just purchase this and be fine?

    Or is there somewhere else that I can buy XP 64-bit?

    Thanks

    That's $170 for xp64 from amazon.com I don't know if you can call it cheap, but personally i'm using the uh, "student edition" for now.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    yeah I bought this laptop/desktop replacement for my freelance work last year and vista

    came pre installed.

    I mean really vista is pretty stable but the stuff I am moaning about is so basic.

    I have explored the right click issue and its apparently due to badly written file handlers.

    Right click on a folder or file properties takes at least 5 seconds, sometimes longer

    I am going to go through my comp and uninstall any crap , see if that make a difference.

    The file lock thing is the worst though. I have a file locked by max photoshop and zbrush WTF

    you know the way things work, i like to paint my textures in phop, do a little test in max ,

    paint some more etc. test again

    This had become so painful now

    cheers for the feedback guys and pior I will try some of those tips, thnks

    This is not really vista bashing thread, just want this stuff fixing. I mean basic exploration

    and filesaving just has to work properly!!
  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    Yea it wasnt helpful but neither is blaming vista for the problem, if you want to blame something you should blame windows :)

    Are you the admin and are you logged in as the admin or do you have multiple user accounts? It could be that the user account is corrupted - try logging on another user and see if the problem persists. You can fix corrupted accounts by deleting them and then just remaking.

    Yea that folder losing display settings is a very annoying problem, bothers me every day too. This xplorer2 thing is awesome, just downloaded the trial and I can already see it being much better than explorer. Thanks for the link.

    As for cheap windows xp, this is the lowest I found but im not sure how reliable this site is (never heard of them) http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=29037
    I myself got a free version from MSDN, yay for being a student.
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    Tossing some ideas out there:

    Are you using a PSD or a TGA for the texture? I've had this issue in Windows since Win2kPro. The file is not really locked, it's "open" by whatever program is using it and it won't allow saving over it. Also, if you were dinking around with your folder permissions you can lock yourself out of a file/directory and anything created in that directory. Is the drive you're using for these files brand new? Or did you pull it from another machine when you upgraded? If so, the permissions will be all borked as well, and you need to reset them on the drive level and put yourself as the owner.

    I have two seats of XP-64 and was holding on to them when I make new machines. XP-64 is great, but Vista Ultimate 64 is much better.

    As for the folder resetting views, it's a known Vista PITA. I used a registry hack and it's worked fine.
  • Lamont
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    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    If you're down for some registry fun and you are ok with it, take a stab with the info below:

    1. Open Start Menu.
    2. In Run or (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.
    3. Click Continue for UAC prompt.(if you have turned UAC off you won't get the popup)
    4. In regedit, go to:
      HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes* \Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Window* s\Shell\Bags
    5. In left pane, right click on Bags, and click Delete
    6. Click Yes to the confirmation pop-up window.
    7. In regedit, go to:
      HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes* \Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Window* s\Shell\BagMRU
    8. In left pane, right click on BagMRU and click Delete
    9. Click Yes to confirmation pop-up window
    10. In regedit, go to:
      HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes* \Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Window* s\Shell
    11. In left pane, right click on Shell and click New and click Key
    12. Type Bags and press Enter.
    13. In left pane, right click Bags and click New and click Key
    14. Type AllFolders and press Enter.
    15. In left pane, right click AllFolders and click New and click Key.
    16. Type Shell and press Enter.
    17. In right pane of Shell, right click on a empty area and click New and click String Value
    18. Type FolderType and press Enter.
    19. In right pane, right click FolderType and click Modify.
    20. Type NotSpecified and click Ok.
    21. In regedit, then go to:
      HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microso* ft\Windows\Shell NoRoam
    22. Right click BagMRU Size, in right pane.(If this value is not there...right click in right pane and creat a DWord called BagMRU Size and proceed)
    23. Click Modify.
    24. Choose Decimal and type 20000 and click Ok
    25. Close regedit.
    26. Restart your computer to apply the reset and to let Vista rebuild the registry keys with a clean slate
  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    I did that before, it only temporarily fixed it for me (the problem came back).
  • monster
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    monster polycounter
    Ruz,

    Try turning off the Preview Pane in Window's Explorer, also don't have the file selected in explorer.

    Organize/Layout/Preview Pane

    I had a similar problem working with HTML files. Turned out the preview pain had the file "open" so my text editor couldn't save over it.

    VistaSearch.png
  • Farfarer
    Yep, preview pane will do it :/

    Also, if you're working with really big files (2048 and the like) the apps seem to hold on to them a fair bit longer to read/write them. Switching back and forth too fast can make it hiccup as one's not done with the file before the other wants it.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    so Yozora you have never heard of this problem ,yet then you posted that the fix only

    worked temporarily for you:)

    seriously, this problem is not just on my comp, I have trolled tech forums looking for solutions

    and it comes up quite a lot, so for me I think blaming vista for this is ok thank you very much

    cheers monster and lamont, will try that.

    Its actually improved already by uninstalling a lot of stuff, like xna and other game dev stuff I don't use much

    I had already gone through most of the speeding up vista stuff previously

    Talon, I had this happen in xp a fair bit, but the vista issue seems diferent in that it can be locked by up to 3 apps at once ie windows explorer,3dsmax and pshop
  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    ruz, lamont's registry fix was for the folder resetting views, not your file locking problem :/

    And its true I never heard of the term "locking files" before, but after googling I found that "the file is in use by another program" is a description of the problem that I recognize, I have seen that problem a few times on XP and it does come up a lot on google - so its not limited to vista and its a consistent problem between different versions of windows.
  • Mark Dygert
    Ruz wrote: »
    so Yozora you have never heard of this problem ,yet then you posted that the fix only

    worked temporarily for you:)

    seriously, this problem is not just on my comp, I have trolled tech forums looking for solutions

    and it comes up quite a lot, so for me I think blaming vista for this is ok thank you very much

    cheers monster and lamont, will try that.

    Its actually improved already by uninstalling a lot of stuff, like xna and other game dev stuff I don't use much

    I had already gone through most of the speeding up vista stuff previously

    Talon, I had this happen in xp a fair bit, but the vista issue seems diferent in that it can be locked by up to 3 apps at once ie windows explorer,3dsmax and pshop
    This drives me bat shit nuts all the time. Happens at work (Vista) and home (XP)... Photoshop CS3 seem to be able to save over files that are "active some place else". I mostly run into it when I try and delete a folder and some app somewhere has it locked down. Normally its 3dsmax holding onto textures. It's really wonky because even if you close the scene and open a blank one it still holds onto the file. Only after shutting down 3dsmax is the file freed.

    There's one more thing about the way 3dsmax holds onto files that really bugs me. If I go to save, and I want to copy the name of an exsisting file I would click it, then change the name. Now even if I change the name, it still asks if I want to overwrite the file I clicked on. HELLO... totally different name, why overwrite? Now there are half a dozen ways to work around this but I shouldn't have to! Grr

    Any way if you figure it out, please post the fix, I know quite a few people who would love to have a fix for this, besides close all open apps.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    Vig that last ones drives me nuts too, ie save over a file a file called texture1.tga, so click on it, then rename , still tries to save over the one I clicked first.
    Its just easier to type it out.

    If I find a definitive solution for any of this stuff I will post it.

    I reckon in a 40 hour week it will cost me at least 2 or 3 hours messing around with this stuff


    XP never locked out files between 3 program ie max pshop and zbrush.( not in my cae nayway)

    the odd thing is, even of the texture is not loaded in zbrush it sometimes locks it out.

    I will do some more research on this 'edit' just read lamonts post about permissions too.
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