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
    2013-08-05T13:28:23+00:00

    Read-only mode caused by hung winword.exe process:

    My file opened in read-only so I saved it to another file name and attempted to delete the original.  It would not allow me to delete it, telling me "The action can't be completed because the file is open in Microsoft Word".  I closed all Word documents and attempted again to delete the file, with the same result.  Aha! - a hung process.  I went into Process Explorer, which I downloaded long ago from Microsoft and like much better than Task Manager, selected the "Winword.exe" process that was still running even though all Word documents were closed, and selected "Kill Process Tree".  Mission accomplished - my document now behaves normally.  Hope that helps someone.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-08-19T07:51:04+00:00

    Within Word, on the Backstage tab click File -> Options. From the "Word Options" window that opens click "Trust Center", then click "Trust Center Settings". Now within the "Trust Center" window, click "Protected View". You will see a heading titled "Protected View". Uncheck the settings you want to disable.

    I have Windows 7 and couldn't find a Protected View tab, but did go into Trusted Locations and set the directory in which I keep all my data files to 'Trusted Location' and that seems to have solved it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-24T18:50:19+00:00

    I found that these were documents that were saved in the root of the C drive. then I decided to look over the UAC settings because it has a direct effect on the files in the root of C. disabled the UAC settings and the files opened properly.

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