Windows has the concept of network location awareness (NLA), which means that you can configure a network as "public" (i.e. home/work), "private", etc..
What information does it use to "fingerprint" a network for this purpose?
Windows Network Location Settings – How Windows Determines Network Location
windows
Related Solutions
I've had success with Sysinternals Process Explorer. With this, you can search to find what process(es) have a file open, and you can use it to close the handle(s) if you want. Of course, it is safer to close the whole process. Exercise caution and judgement.
To find a specific file, use the menu option Find->Find Handle or DLL... Type in part of the path to the file. The list of processes will appear below.
If you prefer command line, Sysinternals suite includes command line tool Handle, that lists open handles.
Examples
c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "e:\"(finds all files opened from drivee:\"c:\Program Files\SysinternalsSuite>handle.exe |findstr /i "file-or-path-in-question"
Related Topic
- Windows Server – Disable Network Locations
- Windows – Configuring multi-homed Windows Vista/2008 machine to ignore default gateway and DNS server settings on one adapter
- Windows – Disable Windows login script per network location
- Windows – Changing Windows Network Profile from “DomainAuthenticated” to Public
Best Answer
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480195.aspx
JR