Mail Merge Word 2003 Terminal Services

[Andrew Duncan]

Hi,

We're running MS Word 2003 under Windows Terminal Services 2003. We've got a
problem with mail merging from our database - we all share the same set of
mail merge letters which all point to the same datasource, which is
automatically created at:

C:\

When the first person opens a mail merge letter everything works fine,
however if they still have the letter open and the 2nd person opens a
different mail merge letter they get an error message telling them that they
can't create the datasource file as it is locked, presumably by the first
person with the letter open.

As everyone shares the same C drive under terminal services I was wondering
if anyone had encountered this before or had any suggestions as it's not
proving very practical at the moment.

Many thanks,
Andrew

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I can't test this here, but there are at least 3 reasons why this may be
occurring:
a. the data source is essentially not shareable, i.e. it wouldn't matter
where you put it or whether or not you were using Terminal Services - two
users can't open it at the same time and that's that. For example, a .csv
file. I don't know if there is anything you can do to fix that (stuff such
as setting the file to Read Only is not enough) but the Terminal Services
experts probably know lots of stuff I don't.
b. the data source is shareable but its location (C:\ drive on the TS
system) causes a problem because of permissions/restrictions on that
location. I would at least try to test that by copying the data source
somewhere else where I more control over the permissions. However, if you
can't modify the permissions for the file that your app. produces then that
doesn't really help anyway - it just tells you that you need to persuade the
app. authors to export the files somewhere else, or that you need to find a
way to copy it once they produce it.
c. the problem is not really to do with the data source but is to do with
Word. That /might/ happen if your users are all sharing the same .dot/.doc -
a couple of years ago someone mentioned that setting the .dot/.doc to
read-only fixed it for them.

What is your data source? FWIW a .mdb definitely does not suffer from (a) in
a non-TS multi-user environment.

Peter Jamieson