File sharing

[dphal]

Hi,

I have a client with two machines running Mac OS X 10.3.6, and MS
Office 2004 with SR1, and both machines have file sharing enabled.

If machine1 has a file on its hard disk opened called file1.xls, and
machine2 tries to open the same file I thought that machine2 would only
be able to access the file read-only, and be told this. However what I
am seeing is that machine2 can open the file, make changes, and save
the changes but if machine1 makes changes and saves their version
machine2's changes are lost.

Shouldn't machine2 be told that they can only open the file read-only?
Thanks for any assistance.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Hi,

I have a client with two machines running Mac OS X 10.3.6, and MS
Office 2004 with SR1, and both machines have file sharing enabled.

If machine1 has a file on its hard disk opened called file1.xls, and
machine2 tries to open the same file I thought that machine2 would only
be able to access the file read-only, and be told this. However what I
am seeing is that machine2 can open the file, make changes, and save
the changes but if machine1 makes changes and saves their version
machine2's changes are lost.

Shouldn't machine2 be told that they can only open the file read-only?
Thanks for any assistance.

Yes. However, in Excel, you can make the workbook shared. Go to tools-share
Workbook. In this mode, may users can open the workbook at the same time and
make changes. Excel will sort out the changes and warn users of conflicting
changes. With shared workbooks, the word 'Shared" appears after the file
name in the title bar.

 

[di]

Hi. I'm experiencing a similar situation with Word docs. Both machines have
the same file open and are able to update. Machine2's changes are lost when
machine1 saves their version. Is there a way to prevent machine2 from
updating the same file while machine1 has the file open?

Thanks.

 

[William Smith]

Hi. I'm experiencing a similar situation with Word docs. Both machines have
the same file open and are able to update. Machine2's changes are lost when
machine1 saves their version. Is there a way to prevent machine2 from
updating the same file while machine1 has the file open?

This problem was brought to the attention of several other MVPs by Beth
Rosengard in December 2003 and I believe someone involved in our private
dialog we had about it reported it to Apple.

It happens with Office files and non-Office files such as TextEdit,
which means the problem lies with the Mac OS and not Office. My testing
showed this problem also exists regardless of connecting via AFP
(Apple's file sharing protocol) or SMB (the UNIX flavor of Windows file
sharing).

The only suggestion I can provide is to try to use a third machine to
act as a file server and not use this machine as a workstation. You will
at least get the message about the file being in use by another machine.

Also, be sure to give Apple feedback about your problem at
<http://www.apple.com/support/feedback/>. The more folks reporting this
problem, the more priority Apple is likely to give the problem.

Hope this helps!

bill

 

[di]

Hi Bill,
Thank you very much for your response. I'm headed to the feedback site now
to report it as a problem.

Regards,
Di