I have this posted in a network forum but haven’t gotten any answers yet. Hoping someone here might have a clue.
This is weirder than necessary but, since it’s Windows, I suppose it cannot really be classified as surprising.
We have a small peer to peer network of WinXP Pro machines. I have set up the Shared Documents folders on each so that they are fully shared. Files can be modified, folder is not read-only. All the things I could find that should make the files accessible. And some files are accessible but MS Office files are being recalcitrant. I haven’t tested every possible file creating program but my results so far are that Notepad files are no problem, Word files are sometimes but not always a problem, and Publisher files are impossible.
What happens is that when the user uses File, Save As to put a copy of the file in their Shared Documents folder, the document is visible to the other users on the network but the file cannot be opened, reporting that it is in use by another user. This is true even if the creating program is shut down on the creator’s computer.
With Notepad, this is not true. Never have had a problem opening a text file on the remote computers. With Word, occasionally one will open without problem, a couple would not allow opening in the Shared folder but would allow them to be copied out to the users desktop and then opened, and a couple would not allow opening in any way. With Publisher, none of the files are openable or copyable at the remote machines. The programs report the files are locked and in use by another user. (All are still openable on the creating machine.)
I have found a workaround. The creator saves the file to another folder and uses Explorer to copy the file to the Shared folder. This works fine for all files (so far). The staff, however, finds this non-intuitive. Does anyone have a suggestion as to why this is happening and how to cure it?
BTW, I have tried using the WhoLockMe utility to discover the locking program/user but it produces no output in these instances.
