Word 2003, Read-only Files and Vista

Anyone having issues with Word 2003 opening files as read-only on
Vista?

I'm running Vista Enterprise and Office 2003 with the latest hotfixes.
Periodically, when I open files from a network drive, they open as
read-only. If I close and re-open the same file, the read-only status
goes away.

Doesn't happen on Windows XP, Office 2003 and the same network drives.
Independently happening on two Vista boxes in IS (our test bed). I
called into Microsoft PSS and opened a case. After 2 hours, we decided
to disable Offline Files and that seemed to help a lot, but I'm still
getting the read-only status on DOC files from time to time.

Doesn't seem to happen with Office 2007, but we are not ready for that
version of Office corporate wide. I'm also not ready to deploy Vista
to the masses with this issue.

So, am I the only one?

Thanks,
Adam

I have had the same problem and many others with Vista. I go into properties
and change the status but I have no other fix. Seems that no one really
knows how to make Vista work correctly. The HP chat people are useless, this
chat room is not much help and Microsoft seems to have dropped the ball.
--
ACK


"Adam Leinss" wrote:

> Anyone having issues with Word 2003 opening files as read-only on
> Vista?
>
> I'm running Vista Enterprise and Office 2003 with the latest hotfixes.
> Periodically, when I open files from a network drive, they open as
> read-only. If I close and re-open the same file, the read-only status
> goes away.
>
> Doesn't happen on Windows XP, Office 2003 and the same network drives.
> Independently happening on two Vista boxes in IS (our test bed). I
> called into Microsoft PSS and opened a case. After 2 hours, we decided
> to disable Offline Files and that seemed to help a lot, but I'm still
> getting the read-only status on DOC files from time to time.
>
> Doesn't seem to happen with Office 2007, but we are not ready for that
> version of Office corporate wide. I'm also not ready to deploy Vista
> to the masses with this issue.
>
> So, am I the only one?
>
> Thanks,
> Adam
>

On Sep 5, 6:34 am, ACK <A...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> I have had the same problem and many others withVista. I go into properties
> and change the status but I have no other fix. Seems that no one really
> knows how to makeVistawork correctly. The HP chat people are useless, this
> chat room is not much help and Microsoft seems to have dropped the ball.
> --
> ACK
>
>
>
> "Adam Leinss" wrote:
> > Anyone having issues with Word 2003 opening files asread-onlyon
> >Vista?
>
> > I'm runningVistaEnterprise and Office 2003 with the latest hotfixes.
> > Periodically, when I open files from a network drive, they open as
> >read-only. If I close and re-open the same file, theread-onlystatus
> > goes away.
>
> > Doesn't happen on Windows XP, Office 2003 and the same network drives.
> > Independently happening on twoVistaboxes in IS (our test bed). I
> > called into Microsoft PSS and opened a case. After 2 hours, we decided
> > to disable Offline Files and that seemed to help a lot, but I'm still
> > getting theread-onlystatus on DOC files from time to time.
>
> > Doesn't seem to happen with Office 2007, but we are not ready for that
> > version of Office corporate wide. I'm also not ready to deployVista
> > to the masses with this issue.
>
> > So, am I theonlyone?
>
> > Thanks,
> > Adam- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I guess if we make enough fuss someone will help.

I have a similar problem.

I open mainly Excel 2003 files in Vista Business from a networked (SBS
2003 standard) drive and they are read only. Yet I have never opened
the files before and know that they are not read only as other people
can open them on their XP machines.

What is going on and who can help us?

Dominic

lorenzdominic_@hotmail.com wrote in
news:1190879251.765852.10950@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

> I guess if we make enough fuss someone will help.
>
> I have a similar problem.
>
> I open mainly Excel 2003 files in Vista Business from a networked
> (SBS 2003 standard) drive and they are read only. Yet I have never
> opened the files before and know that they are not read only as
> other people can open them on their XP machines.
>
> What is going on and who can help us?

Not sure...I have 60 days to re-open the case. I'm afraid by the time
I start my test deployments it will be too late. I also asked
Microsoft PSS for the knowledge base articles that reference this
issue, but they never got back to me. :(

If you want, drop me an e-mail at aleinss...at...hotmail.com. I can
forward you the case notes and e-mail addresses of the people I worked
with.

Adam

Just a note to everyone (those that e-mailed me and here in the news
group) that I have re-opened the case regarding the read-only files in
Office 2003 with Microsoft PSS and they have forwarded my issue to the
Office team.

They were a bit reluctant on re-opening the case, since it was
"solved", but I finally spoke to someone who listened to me and looked
at the case notes and re-opened the case.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Some other things I figured out regarding the problem:

This doesn't happen in safe mode

This doesn't happen in Windows XP with Office 2003 with the same
network drives.

Never seems to happen if you open Word first, go to File>Open and
drill to the file that way.

Sometimes I get a prompt that says "File is locked by another user".
Since this file is on my personal network drive that only I have
access to, this is false. If I click notify, about 10 seconds later
it says the file can be opened.

Ran Procmon while opening various DOC files, on the files with the
Read-Only status, Procmon comes back with a "Sharing Violation".
There surely seems to be some file-locking issue between Office 2003,
Vista and network drives.

Adam

Anyone an update about this issue?

We do have multiple XP and Vista machines on our network, same Office
versions.
On Vista files from our network drives are being opened as read-only
at random...

Thanks
Bert

ByteMe <bert.decat@gmail.com> wrote in news:a0e30a2d-251b-4ed8-8fb9-
8ba0303fcce5@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

> Anyone an update about this issue?
>
> We do have multiple XP and Vista machines on our network, same Office
> versions.
> On Vista files from our network drives are being opened as read-only
> at random...
>
> Thanks
> Bert

Negative...I re-opened the case with PSS, they forwarded the case to
the Office team and haven't heard anything since. I suggest opening
your own case with PSS...maybe if enough people do that they will do
something.

Adam

On Nov 22, 1:37 am, Adam Leinss <alei...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> ByteMe <bert.de...@gmail.com> wrote in news:a0e30a2d-251b-4ed8-8fb9-
> 8ba0303fc...@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Anyone an update about this issue?
>
> > We do have multiple XP and Vista machines on our network, same Office
> > versions.
> > On Vista files from our network drives are being opened as read-only
> > at random...
>
> > Thanks
> > Bert
>
> Negative...I re-opened the case with PSS, they forwarded the case to
> the Office team and haven't heard anything since. I suggest opening
> your own case with PSS...maybe if enough people do that they will do
> something.
>
> Adam

Microsoft want to charge me $390 for a problem which they say is on
the SBS Server 2003. This cannot be the case as I can open Excel files
on other machines ok but on VIsta machine - NO CAN DO - only read only
then second time around OK.

Why is it that the second time they work?????????

Dominic
Upset Microsoft Product USER -

Highlight the file and wait 1-2 seconds for Windows refresh the file details.
The file is not longer locked after that.
Then the file opens fine without Read-only prompt the first time.
Good Luck,
Cyber

"dlorenz7@gmail.com" wrote:

> On Nov 22, 1:37 am, Adam Leinss <alei...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > ByteMe <bert.de...@gmail.com> wrote in news:a0e30a2d-251b-4ed8-8fb9-
> > 8ba0303fc...@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
> >
> > > Anyone an update about this issue?
> >
> > > We do have multiple XP and Vista machines on our network, same Office
> > > versions.
> > > On Vista files from our network drives are being opened as read-only
> > > at random...
> >
> > > Thanks
> > > Bert
> >
> > Negative...I re-opened the case with PSS, they forwarded the case to
> > the Office team and haven't heard anything since. I suggest opening
> > your own case with PSS...maybe if enough people do that they will do
> > something.
> >
> > Adam
>
> Microsoft want to charge me $390 for a problem which they say is on
> the SBS Server 2003. This cannot be the case as I can open Excel files
> on other machines ok but on VIsta machine - NO CAN DO - only read only
> then second time around OK.
>
> Why is it that the second time they work?????????
>
> Dominic
> Upset Microsoft Product USER -
>

We've got the same problem with Vista. XP Pro sees and uses files on the
server without error, but Vista seems to require some special permission or
rights???

We've got 10 computers about to get returned to the vendor or "downgraded"
to XP Pro if we can't get past this!


"Adam Leinss" wrote:

> Anyone having issues with Word 2003 opening files as read-only on
> Vista?
>
> I'm running Vista Enterprise and Office 2003 with the latest hotfixes.
> Periodically, when I open files from a network drive, they open as
> read-only. If I close and re-open the same file, the read-only status
> goes away.
>
> Doesn't happen on Windows XP, Office 2003 and the same network drives.
> Independently happening on two Vista boxes in IS (our test bed). I
> called into Microsoft PSS and opened a case. After 2 hours, we decided
> to disable Offline Files and that seemed to help a lot, but I'm still
> getting the read-only status on DOC files from time to time.
>
> Doesn't seem to happen with Office 2007, but we are not ready for that
> version of Office corporate wide. I'm also not ready to deploy Vista
> to the masses with this issue.
>
> So, am I the only one?
>
> Thanks,
> Adam
>

We are also experiencing this issue.

Our new workstations are Vista Business, with Office 2003 SP3 fully patched,
etc. Everyone that has a new workstation has reported this problem, and so
far I haven't been able to find a fix. They just have to keep an eye on the
title bar every time they open a file and if it says Read-Only they close and
re-open until it works. Frustrating and time consuming.

Hi, did you have any luck with PSS on this issue in the end??

Regards,
Kerry


"Adam Leinss" wrote:

> ByteMe <bert.decat@gmail.com> wrote in news:a0e30a2d-251b-4ed8-8fb9-
> 8ba0303fcce5@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Anyone an update about this issue?
> >
> > We do have multiple XP and Vista machines on our network, same Office
> > versions.
> > On Vista files from our network drives are being opened as read-only
> > at random...
> >
> > Thanks
> > Bert
>
> Negative...I re-opened the case with PSS, they forwarded the case to
> the Office team and haven't heard anything since. I suggest opening
> your own case with PSS...maybe if enough people do that they will do
> something.
>
> Adam
>

On Mar 10, 5:21*pm, kerry@ScriptingIT
<kerry@Scriptin...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> Hi, did you have any luck with PSS on this issue in the end??
>
> Regards,
> Kerry

Nope, I think they forgot about me. However, I did have someone e-
mail me and say that SP1 for Vista has fixed the issue for them. I
applied SP1 to my Vista machine several weeks ago, along with SP3 for
Office 2003. I just tried opening a bunch of Word docs from my
personal network drive and only saw it happen once on one file.
Hoping the issue is fixed (crossing fingers).

Corporate dispensing of Vista here got pushed back to Q4 of this year,
so I'm glad I waited. :)

Adam

Hey Adam,
thanks for posting that. I will try SP1 as I am having the same issue as you.
I also had my users try to open Word first, then open the file. ... it seems
to have helped.
Another thing that has helped immensly, is to just simply re-install Office
after it starts happening. In most cases that took care of the problem.
A couple of them report that it kept happening though. Microsoft would not
listen to me unless I paid them.
Bastards.
But thanks again, and if you get any good news/info, please let us know. I
think this is a bigger problem than most people know. It's been very
frustrating to me and our users.
Later.. V

"aleinss@hotmail.com" wrote:

> On Mar 10, 5:21 pm, kerry@ScriptingIT
> <kerry@Scriptin...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> > Hi, did you have any luck with PSS on this issue in the end??
> >
> > Regards,
> > Kerry
>
> Nope, I think they forgot about me. However, I did have someone e-
> mail me and say that SP1 for Vista has fixed the issue for them. I
> applied SP1 to my Vista machine several weeks ago, along with SP3 for
> Office 2003. I just tried opening a bunch of Word docs from my
> personal network drive and only saw it happen once on one file.
> Hoping the issue is fixed (crossing fingers).
>
> Corporate dispensing of Vista here got pushed back to Q4 of this year,
> so I'm glad I waited. :)
>
> Adam
>

[kzatu]

I am also experiencing this problem, but here is my evaluation of it.

My company is all using Windows XP with mixed Office versions (from Office XP to Office 2007). Everyone is setup with Roaming Profiles and no one has experienced this "read-only" problem.

Only two users were upgraded to Vista and are using Office 2007. I have had problems with Vista and Roaming Profiles so I switched these two users to Folder Redirection. Now only one of the two Vista users is having this "read-only" problem.

Reading this thread strengthens my suspicion that this problem has to do with Vista and Folder Redirection. In Vista, they improved Folder Redirection to include symbolic linking which can link to network folders. The symbolicly linked folders act like Offline Files. So when a user opens an Office doc from their My Documents folder, they are really opening it up on the server transparently. I think this is confusing Office somehow.