The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process

[shorty789]

Would love to provide more information, this is unfortunately the only thing I receive when I try to run the app. Happy to help get you get to the bottom of this though. This error happens when I run the exe as admin or standard user.

[bakapear]

Is that windows 11? I have some hacky powershell script in the code that disables/enables the controller in device manager to free it from other processes. Might not work in 11 anymore

Try this:

1. Plug controller in
2. Manually go to Device Manager and disable and then enable game controller device
3. Run program as admin

[shorty789]

Heya, yea this is on windows 11. I tried those steps as outlined and no luck unfortunately :( - I will see if I can test it out on a windows 10 machine if I have any spares around.

[shorty789]

I have been having a play about with this a bit more, i removed the reference to powershell entirely and I am still getting that exact error message. I got the same error on a win10 vm.

[bakapear]

Usually the controller gets locked by common programs like your Web Browser or Steam/Epic/Discord but if it produces the same error on a clean win10 vm then I have no clue how to solve the issue.

You can try out alternatives instead:
https://github.com/MWisBest/StadiEm (Has to be built manually right now but has clever code to get device access)
https://github.com/71/stadiacontroller (Does not force exclusive mode but you'll end up with 2 controllers in device list)
https://github.com/csutorasa/XOutput#hidguardian-exclusive-mode