Message: The action can’t be completed because the file is open in COM Surrogate

Question

I am trying to save a file, or delete and get the following message:
“The action can’t be completed because the file is open in COM Surrogate. Close the file and try again”

Answer

Users of RealCAD or its applications from v7 onwards may experience an error message that refers to Windows ‘COM Surrogate’ program that runs in the background of Windows operating system. It’s purpose is to generate ‘thumbnails’ of the files you are working on so that you can preview what your files look like when browsing folders, rather than having to open the actual CAD software to see the file. The problem is that sometimes Windows does not complete the task and COM-Surrogate remains running when it shouldn’t be.

COM Surrogate is normally activated when you have ‘Preview Save Type’ set to ‘Drawn Preview’ in ‘Options Settings’ of your CAD software.

If you wish to continue the saving of previews and fix the error you are getting without closing the software first, here is what to do…

  1. Activate Windows Task Manager. One way is to press “Ctrl+Alt+Del” to activate a dialogue box and select “Task manager” from the dialogue box (Make sure “more details” option is active so it shows all the active tasks that are running)
  2. Locate the COM Surrogate task in the list that is displayed
  3. Right-click on the task and select ‘end task’

 You will now able to save without error.

 WARNING: If you have “Preview File Type” set to one of the save options you MUST make sure to allow the system enough time to generate the preview before you close or quite the software, otherwise you risk losing the file completely!