There are several applications, such as service packs and hotfixes, that must replace a file that's in use and is unable to. Windows therefore provides the MoveFileEx API to rename or delete a file and allows the caller to specify that they want the operation to take place the next time the system boots, before the files are referenced. Session Manager performs this task by reading the registered rename and delete commands from the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations value.
This applet dumps the contents of the pending rename/delete value and also reports an error when the source file is not accessible. Here is example output that shows a temporary installation file is schedule for deletion at the next reboot:
C:\>pendmoves
PendMove v1.02 Copyright (C) 2004 Mark Russinovich Sysinternals - wwww.sysinternals.com
Source: C:\Config.Msi\3ec7bbbf.rbf Target: DELETE
The included MoveFile utililty allows you to schedule move and delete commands for the next reboot:
usage: movefile [source] [dest]
Specifying an empty destination ("") deletes the source at boot.
An example that deletes test.exe is:
movefile test.exe ""