unable to open certain workbooks

I copied a workbook from the desktop to the Excel folder
and now when I try to open this workbook, I get the error
messages :"Excel cannot access 'CHECK REGISTER FY 2002-
2003.XLS'. The document may be read only or encrypted."
Plus:Cannot access "'CHECK REGISTER FY 2002-2003.XLS'".
The document is neither read-only nor encrypted. It shows
no properties on the properties tab nor can it be moved or
copied. Help!

Hi,

Your system thinks this file is in use. Try rebooting.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel TA/MVP

>-----Original Message-----
>I copied a workbook from the desktop to the Excel folder
>and now when I try to open this workbook, I get the error
>messages :"Excel cannot access 'CHECK REGISTER FY 2002-
>2003.XLS'. The document may be read only or encrypted."
>Plus:Cannot access "'CHECK REGISTER FY 2002-2003.XLS'".
>The document is neither read-only nor encrypted. It shows
>no properties on the properties tab nor can it be moved
or
>copied. Help!
>.
>

...but maybe it will help someone searching for a solution. I am running XP Pro w/SP2 and Office 2003 w/SP1 on a tablet computer. I applied some updates, rebooted, went to reopen workbooks that I had been working on --- and got exactly the same message Bob was getting. I checked the folder and found it marked read-only. Corrected that, but still had a problem. Finally went into local security policy. Under Local Policies\Security Options\Network access: Sharing and security modell for local accounts, I found it had been set to "Guest only -- local accounts login as guest". This was apparently overriding my login as administrator. I set it to "Classic -- local users authenticate as themselves", logged off, logged on and could suddenly access several files that had appeared inaccessible -- unable to open or move them.

I think part of what delayed the solution and obscured the issue is that I tend to hibernate rather than logging off -- so the files I created were available during that session. It was only when I finally rebooted (usually to apply maintenance) that files suddenly became inaccessible. It also did not follow any pattern that I could discern -- some files were always available, some not.

One clue was that when I looked at properties for the file, I could not see the Security tab -- it just didn't exist. After fixing local security policy, the tab reappeared.