Excel 97 saving to share on Windows 2003 Server

B

Brian Holderread

Any help with the following problems would be appreciated:

#1. Windows 98 SE computers with Excel 97 can not save to network
share. When saving, the progress bar gets to close to 100% and then
Excel hangs. If you do not end task Excel, a temp file will continue
to build in size. (20k spreadsheet's temp file grows by about 800k
every second) It is an Excel problem and not a permissions problem on
the server. The user has full permissions to the folder. The problem
occurs when logged on as administrator also. It is not an issue of
file name length because the problem occurs even with a test file
named "test.xls" is being copied to the root folder of the share. The
computer was re-installed from scratch to make sure it wasn't an issue
of file corruption. After installing Windows 98 SE and Office 97, the
problem still existed. Windows Update has been run on this computer
as of 10/10/03 and all critical patches were applied. Also, Office
SR2-b and dsclient have been applied. The problem still exists. I
can copy the file from a local drive to the same network share without
problems. The problem only occurs when trying to save to the share
through an office app.

#2. Windows 98 SE computers with Office XP have trouble saving to
network shares. It appears as if the connection to the network drives
times out. I get "Document not saved" (in Excel) or a message about
the disk being full (in Word). The user has full permissions to that
shared folder and there is plenty of drive space. If I browse to the
share via explorer or the command line, Word and Excel can save for a
while before the error occurs again. While troubleshooting the
problem, I changed the default time out for network connections on the
server from 15 minutes to 240 minutes on the server. It made no
difference and the error continues to occur. I have gotten around the
problem by creating a batch file that does a dir on each network share
that the user has access to. This seems to be enough to refresh the
connection and gets Excel and Word saving again (temporarily). I was
hoping that someone know of a real solution that would not require the
batch file. As with the problem noted above, a computer has been
re-installed from scratch to rule out file corruption on the client as
the cause of the problem. The computer is up to date with patches via
windows update that ran on 10/10/03 and has the dsclient installed.
It was tested multiple times during the re-install to insure that it
wasn't a Windows or office service pack or the dsclient causing the
problem.
 
P

PD

I am getting exactly the same problem as #1 below (Excel
97, 98se & 2003 Servers).

Maybe a 'red herring' but is only happening on our new
(fast) Intel P4 machines. All our older (slow) P3 PCs are
OK !! All PCs & servers are Dell. ALL PCs worked fine to
2000 Server shares (exact same names etc.). Don't think
its a permission problem here either as a user can save
the exact same file with the P3 PC and its OK ! Office
97 + patches re-installed etc. also. Updating to latest
3COM network drivers (approved, NOT test drivers) did not
help either.

Again ideas would be appreciated please !
 
A

Ankur Desai

-----Original Message-----
I am getting exactly the same problem as #1 below (Excel
97, 98se & 2003 Servers).

Maybe a 'red herring' but is only happening on our new
(fast) Intel P4 machines. All our older (slow) P3 PCs are
OK !! All PCs & servers are Dell. ALL PCs worked fine to
2000 Server shares (exact same names etc.). Don't think
its a permission problem here either as a user can save
the exact same file with the P3 PC and its OK ! Office
97 + patches re-installed etc. also. Updating to latest
3COM network drivers (approved, NOT test drivers) did not
help either.

Again ideas would be appreciated please !

.
I had similar problems before on my Network and what we
found out that it was because of dupator Virus. So cna you
just check your network and see if you have no virus
infecting your network
 
P

PD

Thanks very much for the reponse.

Will try an alternate Virus checker just in case (as we
are always fully patched & up-to-date with our normal
solution). I would expect it to happen when saving to Win
2000 server as well though if infected with Virus ? The
same PC, writing to a copy of the same file on a Win 2000
server does not have the problem ! Our problem only
happens with certain 98SE PCs, with certain Excel97
Workbooks saving to Win 2003 Servers! File is OK also if
saved to the local Hard disk.

Is this the same for you Brian ?
 
B

Brian Holderread

PD said:
Thanks very much for the reponse.

Will try an alternate Virus checker just in case (as we
are always fully patched & up-to-date with our normal
solution). I would expect it to happen when saving to Win
2000 server as well though if infected with Virus ? The
same PC, writing to a copy of the same file on a Win 2000
server does not have the problem ! Our problem only
happens with certain 98SE PCs, with certain Excel97
Workbooks saving to Win 2003 Servers! File is OK also if
saved to the local Hard disk.

Is this the same for you Brian ?

We also only appear to be having the problem on a small number of 98SE
PCS. I am having the issue with PIII's and PIV's. We am not having
the problem on anything slower than a PIII though.
 
M

MTK

I'm having this exact same problem on a new server 2003
install. I've disabled all AV, still happens. Did you
guys happen to find any solutions?
 
S

Stephen Hudson

I too have this problem

Just installed Win 2003 servers (replacing WinNT). Now
our Win98se/Excel97 clients, that have not changed,
randomly hang when saving a spreadsheet. At the server
you have a temp file that just grows and grows, I caught
one that was over 1 gig!

Killing Excel at the client stops it, as does closing the
open file at the server, or just removing the network
cable (at the client!).

As with other postings, this only seems to happen with
fast Win98se clients (not Win2000 Pro or XP Pro). It only
happens when you save a file in Excel. Of the hundreds of
Excel files that get saved every week, it only happens
once or twice a week, and only with Excel files. Copy the
contents to a blank spreadsheet and save on the same
network share with no problem!

I too have changed network cards in the server and
workstation. Reinstalled everything at the workstation,
installed all windows updates, the active directory
client. I've disabled virus checking at the workstation
and the server. It still happens!!

Might have to upgrade all workstation to Windows XP if a
fix can not be found!
 
G

Guest

I also suffer, SBS2003 Excel 97 random file corruption

Has anybody found a solution to this problem ?
 

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