
How the Windows Subsystem for Linux bridges file systems - temp
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-system-support/
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_nalply
When I worked with Cygwin I discovered that Windows still locks files such
that they can't be deleted. An example: I write a paper with LaTeX. When Adobe
Reader has the PDF open, pdflatex fails. It's annoying because it's
interrupting the workflow.

On Linux however, the file can be deleted. Processes which still have the
inode can continue to use the file. This is used by log-rotate: rename the log
file, and the server process continues to write to the renamed log file. Then
restart the server process and a new log file is created.

This discrepance which Cygwin can't overcome led me to give up on Windows with
Cygwin completely.

And now: Does the Windows Subsystem for Linux allow deleting locked files such
that software like Adobe Reader believe they still hold on the file?

~~~
_nalply
It seems so: «Linux has some different semantics surrounding unlinking and
renaming. Specifically, a file can be unlinked even if there are open file
descriptors to the file. Similarly, a file can be overwritten as the target of
a rename operation even if it’s still open. In Windows, if a file is requested
to be deleted, it will only be deleted once the last handle to that file is
closed, leaving the name visible in the file system until then. To support
Linux unlink semantics, VolFs renames unlinked files to a hidden temporary
directory before requesting deletion.»

This is really good news. It seems that I have to evaluate WSL.

