The solution is to open the file in another program in Windows
Many times we want to move or delete a file and find the message “The file is open in another program” which of course prevents us from making modifications to the said file.
What can we do? Something as simple as closing the application that is using this file is more than enough. The problem is that, on many occasions, the application is already closed (at least with the naked eye) and does not allow us to modify the file in any way. This happens because the program is still open in Windows processes.
So we will suggest several solutions to this annoying error, all of them are very simple and you do not need technical knowledge to be able to implement them.
How to fix Windows error, file is open in another program
When we receive the message "The file is open in another program", the first thing is to select the program. Next, we will proceed to close the said program so that we can use the file freely.
The file is in use
We will give an example. In the next image, we will see that this error appears when we try to delete “tracay.docx”, and we see that it is open in Word.
Task Manager
So, to force close the app, we are going to use something as simple as the task manager. We can press Windows + X or right-click on Start and then we will choose Task Manager.
end program
On the Processes tab, we will have to search for Microsoft Word and we will click on it, then we will click on “End task” at the bottom right.
Restart Windows Explorer
If Windows Explorer opens a file, the file mentioned above will be blocked until we restart the process. So we will have to restart the "Explorer".
Repair File Open Another Program Error
For this we return to the Task Manager by pressing Windows + X. On the “Processes” tab we will have to search for “Windows Explorer”, we will right-click on it and choose “Restart”.
Restart your computer
If none of the methods we explained above allow us to use the file in question, another infallible way is, simply, restart the computer. We press Windows > Power button > Restart.