Office 2007 Docs open read only from Webdav folder

Hello,

I want open a document (doc, xls) from a Webdav folder with Office 2007.
Word or Excel open the documents read only. What I can do, that these
documents will be open read-write with Office 2007?

With the older Product Office 2003 I can open the same document for read and
write. With these Version I have no problems.
Some users are working with Office 2003 an some with Office 2007. Both
groups have to use the same files (read and write).

As OS we are using XP and Vista Prof.

Best regards
Mathias K.

I'm having a similar problem so I thought I'd add it to this
discussion rather than start a new one.

I'm having a problem accessing existing files with my new Word and
Excel 2007 running under Windows XP Professional. I recently bought a
new laptop computer (Lenovo R61i) and set up two main users (one with
Administrative access and one without, so I could run my machine in a
more secure mode). I installed Microsoft Office using the
Administrative user and was able to open the programs successfully
from both users. I copied all my old Word and Excel files to
directories residing under the Shared Documents folder and then set
the Word and Excel options (I had to do it separately for both users)
to save files to the appropriate folders in the old compatibility
mode.

When I open the old files as the Administrative user, I have no
problems. However, when I open the same files as the user without
administrative privileges, the files are opened as "Read-Only" files
and I cannot save them after making edits. I checked in Windows
Explorer (with both users) and the files are not marked as Read-Only
in Windows, so it seems to be a problem with Word or Excel. As a
double check I ran the command line ATTRIB program on the same old
data files and they do not have the Read-Only Attribute set. Since I
want to run in the more secure "non-administrator" mode as much as
possible, can you let me know how to fix this problem so my old files
do not open in Read-Only mode.

I already tried changing the Read only option for the non-admin user
in Windows Explorer using the Tools>Folder Options>File Types menu,
but the Advanced button where the Read only option is said to reside
is grayed out if you don't have Administrator privileges.

Any Advice would be most welcome.

Thanks, Steve McCluskey

My best guess is that the problem has nothing to do with read only
access or office 2007.

I think the problem may be because you may have copied the old files
to the new pc while logged in as administrator. This likely made the
administrator the "owner" of the files. User accounts likely will
have no access or read access (no permission to change the file). Note
that this is different from the read-only you refer to.

If I am right, there are several possible solutions.
1. Go through the directories of old files and change the access user
accounts are allowed. This is easier if there is a single parent
directory for all old files. Then (I think), you should be able to
change the user access in the single parent directory & let the new
permissions propogate down through the directory tree.
2. Maybe easier. Delete all the old files using the administrative
account. Recopy all the old files back to the pc using the USER
account. This way, the USER should be the owner & have total access.
Administrator accounts have access to everything.

I hope this is helpful. I am not a MVP, so my knowledge is limited.

David,

Thanks for the suggestion; you may have hit the nature of the problem
as I did copy all the files while logged on as administrator. On the
other hand, I had copied them all into the Shared Documents directory,
assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that if I copied them there every user
would have read access. Could anyone follow up with further insights
on this.

Secondly, could anyone describe how to change access that user
accounts have. I've already used ATTRIB to turn off the read only
attribute for all files in the Shared Documents directory and that
hasn't helped. It sounds like there's some other arcane trick that I
don't know about yet.

As to the second suggestion, am I right in thinking that moving all
the files as a block to the appropriate USER directory would solve my
problem just as well?

Thanks much for the help thus far. Steve McCluskey

"I did copy all the files while logged on as administrator. On
the other hand, I had copied them all into the Shared Documents"
Users should have PERMISSION to access the Shared Docs directory. This
does not guarantee permission to access files in the directory
especially if the administrator put them there. Permission to read a
file is one thing, permission to modify, write to, change, etc. a file
is different.

If you think I am right about this problem, forget about attrib. The
problem apparently is not read-only access. The problem appears to be
permissions. That is who has permission to access a given file and in
what way. attrib can not change permissions.

Moving the files to a different directory will likely not change the
PERMISSIONS especially if the administrator does the moving. Changing
permissions can easily screw things up if you make a mistake if you
are not sure what you are doing.

I still think my previous suggestion#2 is the easiest for you. I do
not how many files, type of files, or anything about them. But if I
assume that your user account can access these files on your backup
media, then if the user account copies them to the new PC, then the
user should become the owner.
Delete all the old files using the administrative account.
Recopy all the old files back to the pc using the USER
account. This way, the USER should be the owner & have total
PERMISSIONS access. Administrator accounts have PERMISSION
access to everything.

[Laimutis]

I have the same problem as you.
Running with Vista, when I open an Office 2007 document from a webDAV
folder, it opens in read-only.
Did you find a solution? Please answer at
Thank you in advance for sharing anything that could help me and my
organization.

We solved this read-only problem with WebDAV in Vista SP1, IE8 and Office 2007 by installing hotfix for KB942392 (http://support.microsoft.com/KB/942392). This hotfix, probably, will be included in Vista SP2.