File Locked for Editting.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Justin
  • Start date Start date
J

Justin

We have a network running on server 2003, client machines
are all Windows XP SP1. I have a user that consistently
when opening .xls files that are stored on the server,
gets the popup message, <filename> is locked for editting
by 'user'.

The odd thing is, the 'user' is the user that is opening
that file.. and she does not have it open allready.

Also, the open and close time of her files are a lot
slower than they should be.

Any ideas?
 
Justin

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
 
maybe some suggestions from Debra Dalgleish's site:

http://www.contextures.com/xlfaqApp.html#ReadOnly
http://www.contextures.com/xlfaqApp.html#AlreadyOpen

When you open a file in excel, excel creates some files in your windows temp
folder.

If excel crashes, then these files don't get cleaned up. You can clean them up
yourself.

Windows start button|run
%temp%

and clean up all you want. (I delete everything--just don't be in the middle of
an install!)

And sometimes excel leaves a hidden instance running. Some versions of Windows
(NT/2k) will allow you to kill those processes.

If excel looks like it's not running:

Alt-ctrl-delete
Task manager
Processes
look for excel.exe and kill it.
(serves the same purpose as rebooting and it's a lot quicker).
 
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