rustup self update fails on windows, can't remove its binary

[Boscop]

D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0>rustup update
info: syncing channel updates for 'stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc'
info: downloading component 'rustc'
 38.1 MiB /  38.1 MiB (100 %)   3.6 MiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'rust-std'
 54.3 MiB /  54.3 MiB (100 %)   3.8 MiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'cargo'
info: downloading component 'rust-docs'
 11.5 MiB /  11.5 MiB (100 %)   3.2 MiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: installing component 'rustc'
info: installing component 'rust-std'
info: installing component 'cargo'
info: installing component 'rust-docs'
info: syncing channel updates for 'nightly-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc'
info: downloading component 'rustc'
 39.9 MiB /  39.9 MiB (100 %)   3.2 MiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'rust-std'
 58.6 MiB /  58.6 MiB (100 %)   2.0 MiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'cargo'
  3.1 MiB /   3.1 MiB (100 %) 713.1 KiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'rust-docs'
 12.8 MiB /  12.8 MiB (100 %)   2.1 MiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'rust-analysis'
597.7 KiB / 597.7 KiB (100 %) 201.0 KiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'rls'
  4.0 MiB /   4.0 MiB (100 %) 777.8 KiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'rust-src'
  3.1 MiB /   3.1 MiB (100 %) 680.3 KiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: downloading component 'rust-std' for 'i686-pc-windows-msvc'
 55.0 MiB /  55.0 MiB (100 %)   3.8 MiB/s ETA:   0 s
info: installing component 'rustc'
info: installing component 'rust-std'
info: installing component 'cargo'
info: installing component 'rust-docs'
info: installing component 'rust-analysis'
info: installing component 'rls'
info: installing component 'rust-src'
info: installing component 'rust-std' for 'i686-pc-windows-msvc'
warning: could not delete temp file: D:\Program Files\.multirust\tmp\kb_tvk27ylo
b7xg9_file
info: checking for self-updates
info: downloading self-update

   stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc updated - (error reading rustc version)
  nightly-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc updated - rustc 1.20.0-nightly (3bfc18a96 2017-
06-29)


D:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0>error: could not remove 'rustup-bi
n' file: 'C:\Users\me\.cargo\bin\rustup.exe'
info: caused by: Access is denied. (os error 5)
info: backtrace:

stack backtrace:
   0:   0x62b6d6 - <no info>
   1:   0x6294cc - <no info>
   2:   0x527bf6 - <no info>
   3:   0x530963 - <no info>
   4:   0x429e12 - <no info>
   5:   0x434c0c - <no info>
   6:   0x4336f0 - <no info>
   7:   0x703cb6 - <no info>
   8:   0x7012a1 - <no info>
   9:   0x43668c - <no info>
  10:   0x4013e2 - <no info>
  11: 0x76b37c04 - BaseThreadInitThunk
  12: 0x775bab8f - RtlInitializeExceptionChain

And then it just hangs forever.

[novacrazy]

On my system it turned out that some instance of rustup.exe never actually terminated, even though its parent terminal was closed. As a result, windows kept the .exe locked.

I terminated rustup.exe from Task Manager and tried again, this time it worked fine.

[toolness]

For others running into this problem--I just realized that my VS Code, which had the rust language service installed, was running rustup.exe--so closing VS Code fixed it in my case!

[peerhenry]

I could not find any rust related process running on my system. I was able to update rustup by simply removing rustup.exe and downloading and running rustup-init.exe from the official website.

https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/install.html

After that, running rustup update prompted me to also remove cargo-fmt and rustfmt, which were then reinstalled and the error is gone.

[zingus]

Suggested fix: try taskkill /F /IM "rls.exe"
rls.exe it's the language server, might be used by editors (including vscode)