Word 2007 and 2010 open files read only

Anonymous
2010-07-04T20:57:05+00:00

I have word 2003 files that I am now opening with word 2010 (recently upgraded from 2007).  All existing files open as read only and I can't save them.  Even newer docx files.  How do I solve this?

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Anonymous
2012-05-23T10:45:37+00:00

One cause of this problem can be the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer.

If you try to open a Word file via Windows Explorer and you have the Preview Pane open the first thing that will happen is that the preview window will start reading the file to display the preview of that file, in the meantime Word itself will also start reading the file. Sometimes  the two process will conflict and Word will determine that it can't open the file for editing because the file is locked (by the preview window) and therefore Word will open the document as read-only. Large files and files with certain types of content can cause the file to be locked by the preview pane.

If this is the scenario that is causing your problem either disable the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer or open the file from within Word via File|Open.

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Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2010-07-04T21:14:13+00:00

From where are you opening the files?  Are they on a CD or were they copied to a CD and then onto the Hard Disk?  If so, the Read Only attribute of the files will have been set.  You can uncheck it by selecting the files (multiple is OK) and then right click and select Properties.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-05-13T10:40:39+00:00

    Excellent answer!

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  2. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-03-03T00:32:03+00:00

    That is something that I said back in 2010.  You first appeared in this thread in 2013.

    In your scenario, the file may become Read only if from some reason the temporary file that Word creates is not deleted when the file is saved.

    See http://support2.microsoft.com/?kbid=211632

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-03-02T15:04:58+00:00

    Replying to Doug Robins, who said, "From where are you opening the files?  Are they on a CD or were they copied to a CD and then onto the Hard Disk?  If so, the Read Only attribute of the files will have been set.  You can uncheck it by selecting the files (multiple is OK) and then right click and select Properties."

    No, Doug, as I have explained several times in this forum, after opening an existing file a random number of times, it suddenly becomes Read Only and it is impossible to change it back. The workaround is to save it as another name, delete the original (which sometimes is impossible, because it's Read Only), and change the name back. Or copy all into a new document. Both are a pain in the butt when you're trying to get some work done. This is clearly a bug in Word and I wish Microsoft would fix it.

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