Windows xp – How do I delete a ‘locked’ file?

On Windows XP, when I try and delete a specific file it says:

 

Cannot delete blah.blah: Make sure the  disk is not full or write-protected  and that the file is not currently in  use.

How can I go around this warning and delete it anyway?

Solution:

To successfully delete a locked file, you will need to identify the process which has locked the file. You need to exit the process first and then delete the file. To know which process has locked a file you need a tool such as Microsoft Sysinternals’ Process Explorer (PE).

Once you have PE installed …

1. Click the Find menu, and choose FindHandle or DLL …
2. Type the file name (name of the filewhich is locked by someprocess.)
3. After typing the search    phrase, click the Search button

You should see the list of applications which are accessing the file :

Now you can kill the offending process using PE or something else.