Message says Personal.xls locked for editing. How do I unlock?

[Bob B.]

When I try to open two spreadsheet files in Excel 2000 I get a message box
headed "File In Use", then within the box "Personal.xls is locked for
editing". I have many other spreadsheet files which open OK. Has anyone seen
this message before, and is it possible to fix the problem so I can access
the files? Thanks.

 

[ElsiePOA]

My experience has been that the message you got only happens when yo
have two copies of Excel open at once. If you open more than on
spreadsheet from within Excel you should not have a problem. If yo
click on an Excel file from outside of the Excel program while Excel i
running on the system, Windows will attempt to open Excel again an
then you get the problem.
:cool

 

[Gord Dibben]

One possible cause.......

Excel stores in Windows\Temp(win98) folder a copy(s) of any file
that is open.

Sometimes this *.tmp file is not deleted from the Temp folder when
you close out Excel(maybe a crash of Excel?) or the file, so Excel
thinks it is still open and locked for editing.

You can try a re-boot and see if that clears it up. If not, after a
re-boot, clear out your Windows\Temp folder.

If using WinXP your Temp folder would be under user.......

Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\Temp

If on a network, re-booting the server may be the only solution.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP