Microsoft KB Archive/229483

= Shared workbooks that are stored on Office Web server open as read-only in Excel 2000 =

Article ID: 229483

Article Last Modified on 9/28/2004

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q229483



SYMPTOMS
When you open an Excel workbook, you receive the following message:

 is locked for editing

by .

Click 'Notify' to open a read-only copy of the document and receive notification when the document is no longer in use.

where  is the name of the file you are opening, and  is the name of the user who currently has full edit control (Read-Write) of the file.

When you click a hyperlink on your Office Server Extensions home page to open an Excel workbook, you receive the following message:

File is locked. In order to save changes to the file, you can either close the file before making any changes and then re-open it, use Save As (File menu) to save the file using another filename, or turn off Shared Workbooks and then save the file.



CAUSE
This problem will occur then the following conditions are true:
 * The file is a shared workbook.
 * The workbook is stored on a Web server that is running the Office Server Extensions.
 * Another user currently has the workbook open.



WORKAROUND
To work around this issue, save your shared workbook to a network drive, and not an Office Server Extended Web Server.



MORE INFORMATION
Shared workbooks do not work as expected on Web servers; they behave the same as "unshared" workbooks. That is to say, at any given time only one user will be able to open the workbook for editing (Read-Write), all other users can only open the file as Read-Only.

