Word 97 Read-only/Archive

[Lidia]

I don’t know how this happened? My puter is a five year old dell with word 97.
Some of my old word files have been changed to Read-only. I can manually change
them back to Archive but can they all be changed at one time by default? Thanks,
Lidia

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Do you mean that when you look at the files in windoze explorer the
read-only attribute is checked?

If so, that's got nothing to do with the archive setting or with Word.

I suspect that at some point, the files were changed to read-only, perhaps
by being recorded on a CD-ROM and then re-copied back to the disk drive
without clearing the read-only bit.

But why does not matter, you can clear the bit manually in windoze explorer,
or you can write a program/macro that searches for all such files and clears
the bit.

 

[Lidia]

Thanks Howard for the reply. These are only Word files that I saved over time
and which when I went back to one, opened, edit and closed it, I got the notice
that it was a Read-only file and I had to save changes under a new name. Now I
got two, easy to get confused and delete the wrong file. No big deal as I've
learned after opening a few that I must check that box first. You are correct in
that they were saved to a CD and copied back to the HD. I did not know until you
mentioned it but I believe that's what caused it to happen. Trouble is I don't
know which files (there are a bunch) that have the Read-only box checked. So now
I first look at the attributes before I open a Word file. Never worked with
Macro but I will give that a look/see.

 

[Anne Troy]

Hi, Lidia. You can use the file attribute commands. Try here:
http://www.ss64.com/nt/attrib.html
I've never used them in XP myself, but I'm sure there's instructions there
too.
**** Hope it helps! ****

~Dreamboat
Excel VBA Certification Coming Soon!
www.VBAExpress.com/training/
********************************

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Lidia's main problem is finding the files.
It's easier to right-click on a bunch of files in windoze explorer and then
clear all the files with one operation.

I only suggested a program/macro as it could search for all, say, .doc files
and change the attribute automagically.