8.1.7.4.12 patch installation

Looking for recommendations to make applying this patch a little better. This is perhaps the UGLIEST Oracle patch I've ever seen. There are between 75 and 100 files that need to be manually copied from the patch directory to the %ORACLE_HOME% subdirectories. I have numerous servers running 8.1.7.4 that need to be patched and each time I do it I run into at least 10 files that can't be replaced even though all Oracle services are shut down. The error message I get states essentially that those files (mostly DLLs) are still in use. There are no applications on these servers. They're purely used as database servers. What suggestions do you have to avoid these errors?

I have already tried disabling all Oracle services and rebooting the server. This didn't help at all.

Upgrading to 9i is not an option. The applications are not certified to run against a 9i database

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Chuck
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