Read Word Documents Without Locking?

[Steve K]

Is it possible to prevent documents being "locked for editing" when
individuals with read-only acccess open them?

Following problem occurs when using MS Word 2003 on a corporate Windows 2000
network while sharing and reviewing documents:

When users who have read-only access, using either Protect Document or
file-system settings, the Word documents are still "locked for editing" after
they have opened the document as "Read-Only".

Individuals who have write-access and need to edit the document are locked
out from doing their work until there is nobody else even looking at it, and
occasionally the documents remain "locked for editing" indefinitely even
after the reader has closed it.

So far our only solution has been to ask network system administrators to
intervene at a system level to forcibly remove a user's file lock after we
decide we can't wait anymore. We would be much better off if we could prevent
the unnecesary file locking from happening in the first place.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Word is not a multi-user application. Only one person can access at a time.
The first person to open the document creates a lock file in the document
folder. While that lock file is present, the document may not be edited.
Word cannot be configured to not create the lock file. You could investigate
document management systems to see if anything offers the usability you
require.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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