Documents Changing to Read-Only

[Kristy]

Our office is running a Windows Small Business Server (2003) with Windows XP
Pro workstations using Office 2003. Lately when users are in Word they are
having problems with documents changing to read only without warning. This
normally happens after a document has been saved a few times but is not
consistent and is happening at various times to different people throughout
the office. The documents are saved to a shared folder on the server but in
different locations therein.

Has anyone experienced this problem before or do you know of a possible
solution? It is causing a lot of grief and frustration within the office.

 

[Beth Melton]

Do you have the workstations set to AutoDisconnect?
Open "My Computer" and note the Network icon. It may display with an
"X". Typically if you select the network drive again then it
re-establishes the connection and many times this can go unnoticed.

If there is a delay and then when the file finally opens it opens as
Read only then it sounds like this is the problem.

Here's what may be happening:

If they are getting disconnected then Word is unable to create a temp
file called the "Owner file". This temp file is stored in the same
location as the document and holds the user info for the person that
has the document open. Since Word has no way of locking the file in
it's original location it uses "Read only" to protect the original
file.

Here's more information on AutoDisconnect:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297684

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/