3 ms·

If you read my comment, you can see in the first few words I mention how you can do a delete transaction and it will delete it when it's not being used anymore.

by maldev 4y ago

If you read my comment, you can see in the first few words I mention how you can do a delete transaction and it will delete it when it's not being used anymore. Or you can also just open the file with the share delete flag and it will allow the same. And linux doesn't handle it perfectly, you see errors like "text file busy". I don't get why you chose to argue how the non recommended, brute force method, is lengthy. It's not intended to be used and was mainly just to show you can, and there's nothing stopping you. Why is explicitness bad? Would you rather have those weird errors on linux where it's open by default? Or have it where the program author has to say "Yes, this file is fine to be deleted while i'm using it".

Phemist 4y ago
I'm just going by the comments of others but: "Yes, this file is fine to be deleted while i'm using it" is fine if all processes play nice, which apparently Windows Defender _does not_. Edit: likely Windows Defender couldn't work if it did? So, in order to consistently delete a file without triggering the file lock, you need to use the work-around. I'm just guessing here, but wouldn't Windows Defender need to be some privileged process (as it's e.g. an anti-virus) where then this file-locked file deletion process would be impossible to perform? Otherwise, a computer virus could just keep killing the Windows Defender file handler, making it impossible to read its files and keeping Windows Defender from performing its duty.
- maldev 4y ago
  Exactly, the developers of Defender decided it needed to lock the file, arguably for alot of reasons. To prevent tampering etc, it's an antivirus, it doesn't want you to be able to bypass a scan of a file, or change it. Windows has things like Datastreams(Which come from Mac), so the same "file", can actually have two different files in it, and require different file openings. IE, "Foo.exe" and "Foo.exe:MALWARE" would be completely different file contents, despite both being foo.exe. And OpenFile("Foo.exe"), would not open foo.exe:MALWARE. Alot of the confusion comes from people not understanding the functionality. Delete file means "Delete it now" on windows(ignoring slack space). But on linux it means "Queue up the file to be deleted". Windows also has this, but it's going to be a transacted operation, which is literally called DeleteFileTransacted vs DeleteFile, so the Kernel sees noone is using it and then will delete it. And honestly, if you go up to any lay person and ask them "What does 'DeleteFile'" do. They'll probably respond it deletes the file. Not queues it up for deleted, but other people can still access it. So I think the windows verbage makes more sense, with another function appending Transacted to it, which signifies it will be done eventually.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    There is nothing about antivirus that requires file deletion block on other processes including the antivirus. For one thing, you just said Windows has a similar functionality available anyway just invoked a different way. Is that a way around Defender? It better not be. If it exists as something you can use, and yet still isn't a way around Defender, then it's silly to even be talking about Defender to justify this 70's behavior. The understanding of laypeople in how a multitasking operating system kernel coodinates a graceful teardown of a shared resource, or fails to in the case of Windows, has exactly no bearing on anything. Why isn't it exactly as reasonable to presume that "any lay person" would expect that they can simply issue a delete command and it happens, without having sit there and wonder why they're stuck and go worry about other processes that they didn't write and don't have any knowledge or control over? It is exactly as reasonable. And both are pure meaningless presumption, and don't matter anyway since the understanding of a lay person would be a ridiculous way to design the inner workings of ... anything, definitely including an operating system. These arguments are swiss cheese.

by maldev 4y ago

Phemist 4y ago

I'm just going by the comments of others but: "Yes, this file is fine to be deleted while i'm using it" is fine if all processes play nice, which apparently Windows Defender _does not_. Edit: likely Windows Defender couldn't work if it did? So, in order to consistently delete a file without triggering the file lock, you need to use the work-around. I'm just guessing here, but wouldn't Windows Defender need to be some privileged process (as it's e.g. an anti-virus) where then this file-locked file deletion process would be impossible to perform? Otherwise, a computer virus could just keep killing the Windows Defender file handler, making it impossible to read its files and keeping Windows Defender from performing its duty.

maldev 4y ago
Exactly, the developers of Defender decided it needed to lock the file, arguably for alot of reasons. To prevent tampering etc, it's an antivirus, it doesn't want you to be able to bypass a scan of a file, or change it. Windows has things like Datastreams(Which come from Mac), so the same "file", can actually have two different files in it, and require different file openings. IE, "Foo.exe" and "Foo.exe:MALWARE" would be completely different file contents, despite both being foo.exe. And OpenFile("Foo.exe"), would not open foo.exe:MALWARE. Alot of the confusion comes from people not understanding the functionality. Delete file means "Delete it now" on windows(ignoring slack space). But on linux it means "Queue up the file to be deleted". Windows also has this, but it's going to be a transacted operation, which is literally called DeleteFileTransacted vs DeleteFile, so the Kernel sees noone is using it and then will delete it. And honestly, if you go up to any lay person and ask them "What does 'DeleteFile'" do. They'll probably respond it deletes the file. Not queues it up for deleted, but other people can still access it. So I think the windows verbage makes more sense, with another function appending Transacted to it, which signifies it will be done eventually.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  There is nothing about antivirus that requires file deletion block on other processes including the antivirus. For one thing, you just said Windows has a similar functionality available anyway just invoked a different way. Is that a way around Defender? It better not be. If it exists as something you can use, and yet still isn't a way around Defender, then it's silly to even be talking about Defender to justify this 70's behavior. The understanding of laypeople in how a multitasking operating system kernel coodinates a graceful teardown of a shared resource, or fails to in the case of Windows, has exactly no bearing on anything. Why isn't it exactly as reasonable to presume that "any lay person" would expect that they can simply issue a delete command and it happens, without having sit there and wonder why they're stuck and go worry about other processes that they didn't write and don't have any knowledge or control over? It is exactly as reasonable. And both are pure meaningless presumption, and don't matter anyway since the understanding of a lay person would be a ridiculous way to design the inner workings of ... anything, definitely including an operating system. These arguments are swiss cheese.