Word 2007 "File permission error"

[Gsezra]

My problem is similar to that raised by two others in this forum, BUT: I am
saving to my usual hard drive, not a floppy or a USB. I use XP SP2, and
Word 2007, but in 2000 compatibility mode for the benefit of others. After
months of having no problems at all, Word suddenly refuses to re-save a file
to which amendments have been made, deletes that file from the hard drive,
and claims it cannot save because of a file permission error. It is
perfectly possible to initiate a re-save (using "retry"), so I have only lost
one piece of work, but it is a considerable nuisance not to be able to
re-save quickly and easily. I've tried "Repair Word" and it said it cured
something - but this wasn't it. This problem also happens when saving in
full 2007 .docx mode, si it'snot just a compatibility issue. Can anybody
advise?

 

[Terry Farrell]

What happens if you start Word in Safe Mode? From Start | Run, type in

winword /a

and press Enter. Now open a document and edit: can you save it now?

Also, let us know which Anti Virus you are using.

 

[Gsezra]

Somewhat to my surprise, using Word in Safe mode does not solve the problem.
I was already wondering whether to suspect my anti-virus, as after donkey's
years of using Norton without problem I have recently, under advice, switched
to Kaspersky. I suppose I can test the theory by disabling Kaspersky and
rebooting. My Norton License has run out, of course, but I'd be inclined to
switch back if that is the problem.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Both Norton and Kaspersky have problem with these symptoms. With NAV, you
can disable the Office plug-in under advanced options. I'm not familiar with
the setup in Kaspersky, but I suspect it has something similar. Try one of
the Kaspersky support forums for some advice.

Terry

 

[Antti Nivala]

A fairly in-depth technical description of what goes wrong is now
available in the following discussion thread in OSR Online:
http://www.osronline.com/showthread.cfm?link=162127

To summarize: As far as I understand, you can encounter this problem
if you are using Word and saving to a FAT/FAT32 file system, or to
another file system that functions similar to the FastFat driver. The
way the FastFat driver, anti-virus software, Windows, and Word
interact leads to this problem. A valid workaround in many cases is to
switch from FAT to NTFS.

Solving the problem would be possible by changing the FastFat driver.
Microsoft could do this, although I don't know how aware they are of
this problem. On the other hand, the actual defect is perhaps not
really in the FastFat driver, but instead in the way all these
different components interact.

Best regards,

Antti Nivala
Motive Systems

 

[Terry Farrell]

That's very interesting and explains a few similar problems. It also
explains why I have never experienced it because I've not used FAT/FAT32 for
at least 10 years.

Thanks for posting that here.

Terry Farrell