cargo install on Windows fails if the target executable is running

[mzji]

OS: Windows 10 x64
Console Output:

C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Rust\winres>cargo install racer -f
    Updating registry `https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index`
   Compiling rustc-serialize v0.3.22
   Compiling unicode-segmentation v0.1.3
   Compiling libc v0.2.18
   Compiling typed-arena v1.2.0
   Compiling utf8-ranges v0.1.3
   Compiling bitflags v0.7.0
   Compiling memchr v0.1.11
   Compiling ansi_term v0.9.0
   Compiling winapi-build v0.1.1
   Compiling regex-syntax v0.3.9
   Compiling unicode-width v0.1.4
   Compiling unicode-xid v0.0.3
   Compiling kernel32-sys v0.2.2
   Compiling strsim v0.5.2
   Compiling aho-corasick v0.5.3
   Compiling log v0.3.6
   Compiling vec_map v0.6.0
   Compiling winapi v0.2.8
   Compiling toml v0.2.1
   Compiling syntex_pos v0.52.0
   Compiling thread-id v2.0.0
   Compiling term_size v0.2.1
   Compiling term v0.4.4
   Compiling thread_local v0.2.7
   Compiling clap v2.19.3
   Compiling regex v0.1.80
   Compiling syntex_errors v0.52.0
   Compiling syntex_syntax v0.52.0
   Compiling env_logger v0.3.5
   Compiling racer v2.0.4
    Finished release [optimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 613.58 secs
   Replacing C:\Users\USERNAME\.cargo\bin\racer.exe
error: failed to move `C:\Users\USERNAME\.cargo\bin\cargo-install.txmENb8PGFGR\racer.exe` to `C:\Users\USERNAME\.cargo\bin\racer.exe`

To learn more, run the command again with --verbose.

cargo version:

C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Rust\winres>cargo version
cargo 0.17.0-nightly (740f9c0 2016-12-29)

rustc version:

C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Rust\winres>rustc -vV
rustc 1.16.0-nightly (4ecc85beb 2016-12-28)
binary: rustc
commit-hash: 4ecc85beb339aa8089d936e450b0d800bdf580ae
commit-date: 2016-12-28
host: x86_64-pc-windows-msvc
release: 1.16.0-nightly
LLVM version: 3.9

See also #3364

[alexcrichton]

This is likely related to racer running in the background still, and cargo install not working to uninstall programs that are currently running.

[mzji]

Could we kill all racer instances in this case?

[alexcrichton]

That's probably not Cargo's job itself, but Cargo can likely do something better here regardless.

[dwijnand]

2 years later, do we want to assume this still needs fixing?

[PerMagnusH]

I also get this almost every second time I do a cargo install. It's quite annoying really.

[samoylovfp]

I forget about this every time the new version of nu shell comes out. And to update it I have to close vscode, all the console windows and open up powershell or cmd and run cargo install nu there. Quite annoying. I wonder if cargo install can issue this call
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1606140/how-can-a-program-delete-its-own-executable when run on windows.