Weird "File in Use" error opening Excel 2007 Files on the network.

Anonymous

We are having weird problems when trying to open 2007 Excel files. I have seen some similar problems listed on different forums etc but nothing that seemed just like what we are experiencing.

Here is our configuration and what I have found out so far.

· The problem occurs any time we double-click a XLSX file located on the network and Excel is already open

o We get the “File in Use” error: “<filename> is locked for editing by ‘another user’. Open ‘Read-Only’ or click ‘Notify’ to open read-only and receive notification when the document is no longer in use.

o We have verified that when this happens *NO ONE* is accessing the file and according to the server the file is not being accessed

· If Excel *IS NOT* already open it works

· If the file is located on the local machine it works

· If we convert the file to a XLS format it works

· If we copy the file to another network location and double-click it works

o THE FIRST TIME ONLY

o After the first time it always fails

· In Excel if we goto OPEN, browse and then select the file it works

o The same if we open it from the list of Recent Documents, it works

· If we click on “Notify” when we get the error message within 10 seconds it says it is available and we click “Read-Write” and it works

· If we Right-Click on the file and select “OPEN” it works

· But if fails every time if we double-click a XLSX file that is located on the network when Excel is already open

· We are running Windows 7 64-bit enterprise edition

· Office 2007 SP2

· The Excel Option Advanced | General, "Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)" is already unchecked

As you can see we can work around the problem but it is very annoying to our users

If you have seen this problem and know of a fix I would appreciate knowing what you found out.

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Anonymous

We were having this problem with several users from remote locations accessing Excel files on a file server. The clients are Windows 7 Pro systems connecting to a 2003 R2 server. I suspect this would also occur with 2008/2008r2 servers, but I have not tested it. It does not occur with XP clients. The file was getting a lock on it even though it was not being opened. The file lock would last 10-20 seconds before being released. There are three things that contribute to this problem, all of them Windows Explorer related:

Selecting the file in Explorer -just highlight it without opening
Hovering over the filename so that the pop-up file information box was displaying
Using the Preview Pane in Explorer

To fix the problems:

Turn off the Details Pane shown at the bottom of Windows Explorer. Go to Organize -> Layout -> Details Pane. That fixes the first problem.
Turn off “Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items” Click on Tools -> Folder Options. In the box that opens up, click on the View tab. Scroll down the list to “Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items” and clear the checkbox and then click OK. This fixes the second problem.
Turn off Preview Pane. Go to Organize -> Layout -> Preview Pane. This fixes number 3.

The preview pane is not on by default in the "Details" view, but the other two options are on by default. The file locks are created when Explorer is gathering file information like size, author, modified date, etc.. I suspect that it would also do this with any other file type, but I have not tested that situation either. For those of you in a managed environment (I guess that would be anyone reading this since the likelihood of home users having this problem would be approaching zero), I am going to use regmon to see what registry keys are modified by the changes. I will post them so that you can deploy them to your environment if I find them.

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Anonymous

Here's the keys that you need to set - save the following as a .reg file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]

"ShowInfoTip"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Modules\GlobalSettings\Sizer]

"PreviewPaneSizer"=hex:35,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,bd,02,00,00

"ReadingPaneSizer"=hex:04,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,64,02,00,00

I tried using the HKLM hive and it did not work, so it needs to be a per user policy. Come on Microsoft, administrators should be able to set these kind of keys at the machine level to apply to all users.

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Anonymous

Thanks Pibkac - Coincidentally I had a user tell me earlier this week that they discovered that if they close their Explorer window and "start over" the problem goes away and they can open the file. So you may be onto something that might help us.

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40 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-09-17T11:58:59+00:00

Try restarting your computer in clean boot mode and then check if the issue occurs. Refer the link below for information on how to troubleshoot issues in clean boot mode:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Note: Ensure to restart the computer in normal mode after completing the troubleshooting steps. Follow Step 7 in the article above to do the same.
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Anonymous

2010-09-20T18:54:41+00:00
I've got the same issue. One of our user's is trying to open files from a network share on a Win7 box and gets "locked for editing by 'another user'". I've googled it for days and most folks seem to think it's a lock file issue but there are no lock files in the folders she is using.

I had the user create a new file on the network share and the same thing happens. Any file she opens, she gets the locked message. But I had her open it from another PC and it opens just fine. She can save, edit, create, etc. I logged on to one of my test boxes as the user and I can open the same files on the same network share that she is unable to.

So:
- It's one specific machine only (which by the way has Win7 - one of the few in our organization that has it but not the only one).
- It affects all folders on this shared drive no matter who created them (other shared drives work fine).
- It only affects Office docs (txt documents can be opened and saved just fine).
I tried:
- Deleting and recreating the Windows profile (including the registry entry that points to it)
- Logging on as another user to the same machine and editing the same files (which works)
- Making the user a local admin on the machine (which didn't help)
- Logged onto another Win7 machine as the user and could edit the files with no problem.
What the heck could it be? I feel like I've ruled out the local machine, the server, the user account, the profile... ?!?!

EDIT: I read the original post more carefully and tried right-clicking the file on the troublesome PC and choosing "Open" and IT WORKS... This is infuriating.
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