The guard answered "nothing is holding the payload" from two lookups that can
both miss a running instance: Restart Manager does not reliably report a
program's own image or the modules it mapped, and the image path of a process
running under another account cannot be read from the probe at all. A user log
showed exactly that: the first guard passed while cockatrice.exe was running
from the directory, the old uninstaller silently skipped the file it could not
delete, and the update aborted half an uninstall later with "cancelled by user"
after a close attempt the running window ignored.
Ask the file itself. A running image is opened without write sharing, so the
write open replacing it needs is refused with ERROR_SHARING_VIOLATION for as
long as the program runs, while a file that is merely being read still accepts
it. When neither lookup named anybody and a payload executable refuses that
open, the probe answers that the file is in use and that the program holding it
could not be identified - the guard's "could not confirm" dialog, whose Retry
works once the user has closed it - instead of passing the payload as free.
Only the payload executables are tested, not every file the purge removes: a
locked executable proves a program is running and a mapped DLL belongs to a
running executable, while a locked DLL or qt.conf can be the asking process
itself, which is the loop the guard already had. The open is retried once after
300 ms, and only for the files that refused, so a scanner holding a file for a
moment cannot stop an install for nothing.
The Windows probe check now covers that answer: a payload executable held by
the asking process, so that it cannot be named, has to come back as in use
rather than as free.
Co-authored-by: Lukas Brübach <Bruebach.Lukas@bdosecurity.de>
The running-instance lookup named every process whose image path began with the
install directory, subfolders included. Installing into a folder that holds
another application in a subfolder therefore reported that application as
holding the previous version, and nothing the guard offers could clear it: the
close asks cockatrice.exe only, and the end answer refuses anything that is not
a payload program. Both answers were no-ops, so the update could only abort and
tell the user to close a program that was never touching the files.
Name only the programs the payload installs, and only when the image lies in the
install directory itself. A program below the directory that really does hold a
payload file is still named by the Restart Manager lookup, which is the lookup
for that question.
The Windows probe check now covers a payload-named program in a subfolder and a
program the payload does not install; both have to come back as nothing.
Co-authored-by: Lukas Brübach <Bruebach.Lukas@bdosecurity.de>
