Office 2010 - issues with locked files from server

[seedubya]

Hi all

I have a small npo client. They have an old W2003SBS server and 6 clients - 2 WXPPro and 4 recently replaced with W7Pro x64.

The server is running as well as can be expected given its age. No major problems of any kind really, has plenty of RAM and free space.

All the client machines are running Office Professional 2010 (they get it on some deal for charities). Intermittently and unpredictably, the W7 machines will be unable to open various Word or Excel documents that are stored on the server's single, universally accessible fileshare. This does not happen to files saved locally on the machine and it doesn't happen at all to XP machines.

I am aware of an issue with the Preview Pane in Explorer in Windows 7 which can cause this but it's only supposed to affect Excel files, afaik. I still suspect that disabling the Preview Pane will be the solution but I just thought I'd see if anyone else had any input on this before I go in there tomorrow.

 

[FoolishTech]

Do you get anything in the event logs (workstation or server) about sharing access violations?

One potential problem I've seen with this in the past is antivirus apps scanning the docs and when they do they appear as locked by Office. You might get some mileage from excluding that share in A/V scans on the server and various workstations.

 

[seedubya]

Do you get anything in the event logs (workstation or server) about sharing access violations?

One potential problem I've seen with this in the past is antivirus apps scanning the docs and when they do they appear as locked by Office. You might get some mileage from excluding that share in A/V scans on the server and various workstations.

Nothing at all in the logs, unfortunately. I think the file share is already excluded. They're using Eset which can definitely cause issues when scanning file shares so I'll be double checking that. Thanks.

 

[coffee]

I have delt with this problem several times with my clients. It comes from the security settings in the MSoffice package. If you open the preferences and check for a setting on opening files outside your local storage or something similar. I dont remember offhand where its located in preferences or settings.

There are quite a few posts on this if you search google. Its a security setting to guard against viruses. I went in and unchecked the security setting and things worked fine from there.

Hope this helps

Best Regards,

coffee

 

[FoolishTech]

Interesting coffee!

Is this it? I see File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Trusted Locations and finally in all that, "Allow Trusted Locations on my Network" near the bottom. Do you also then have to add the network path as a trusted location, or is it automatic?

 

[coffee]

I think I went in and just turned the darn thing off. Stupid if you ask me. I had clients that received things like word documents and pdfs via email that they could not open.

I just dont remember where in the "trust center" it is but should be a check box for trusting all sites or something similar.

Best Regards,

coffee

 

[FoolishTech]

Hmm... well in any case I think that will help me at work with my issue - not that they cannot open docs, but that they always have to click the "enable editing" button in the yellow banner at the top. That annoys the heck out of my users.

 

[seedubya]

Here's an interesting flowchart for the problem my client is having
http://blogs.technet.com/cfs-filesy...es/00-00-00-87-63/6153.filelockflowchart1.jpg