error message

[conoco]

I have Microsoft Office v.x installed on my Mac. for about a week ago
I have been unable to open any word documents. I receive an error
message that states that the document is being used by another user and
asks if I want to make another copy. when I reply "ok" the message
replies that word cannot open the document. It then directs me to open
the document from the file menu, which is also unsuccessful. Help. I
can't open any of my word documents. what happened?

 

[John McGhie [MVP -- Word and Word Mac]]

What "happened" is that something has munged your file association
preferences in OS X, so documents of type Microsoft Word are no longer
pointing at Microsoft Word.

There is an elegant fix for this using Terminal that I cannot remember. The
inelegant one is to run the Office Remover tool from your CD, then
re-install Microsoft Office. Ideally, use the Installer rather than
drag-and-drop installing.

It will re-associate itself with the correct file extensions and file types
when you re-install it.

Hope this helps

 

[Elliott Roper]

What "happened" is that something has munged your file association
preferences in OS X, so documents of type Microsoft Word are no longer
pointing at Microsoft Word.

There is an elegant fix for this using Terminal that I cannot remember.

If that is all it is, and I don't believe it, it may be easily
rectified in the Finder.
Select a word .doc file, get info, select 'open with', choose Microsoft
Word in the list of applications that appear (or via "other") and check
the button that extends your choice to all other files of this type.

The inelegant one is to run the Office Remover tool from your CD,
then re-install Microsoft Office. Ideally, use the Installer rather
than drag-and-drop installing.

It will re-associate itself with the correct file extensions and file types
when you re-install it.

That looks like it is fixing a different problem, like Word itself is
not offering an ability to open anything much. ;-)

I'm probably teaching conoco to suck eggs, but when that oil company
tries to open the file from the file menu, how's the setting for which
file types ..word document, template, all documents.. set?

There is something more to this problem I think. If the "in use by
another" is not a lie, then he/she/it may have a problem with file
ownership and permissions. But it must be a big one if it is affecting
every Word doc. Again, a look at a .doc in finder's get info ..
ownership and permissions.. might be informative.

There is also probably a file system flag set when a file is open for
write to stop others scribbling over it. For one file, I could be
persuaded that the bit was erroneously left set when closed, but it it
hard to believe every Word file was singled out for that treatment.