Handling concurrent access with excel spreadsheets

  • Thread starter Thread starter bjp
  • Start date Start date
B

bjp

We have a scenario in my group where one user may be
updating a spreadsheet, and 3 or 4 others may be
accessing it in read-only mode at the same time. When
all is said and done, it is not uncommon for nobody to be
able to get into the sheet in update mode, even after all
users who had been in the sheet have exited. This
seemed to become an issue with the introduction of
Windows XP.

Short of trying to convince people to only go in one at a
time, does anyone have any concurrent access tips to
offer? Or, is there a way to inquire on all enqueues
against a given sheet and then be able to release those
enqueues? We're running Excel 2002 on XP Professional
5.1 (Build 2600.xpsp2.021108-1929:Service Pack 1)
 
A potentially similar problem I've experienced involved an Excel file
that was set up for sharing, although I don't think that had anything
to do with the issue itself. (Note that if you have sharing turned on,
you can get a list of all users who currently have the file open.)
There seems to be a bug that only affects Excel files stored on Windows
file servers when you access them from an XP client. I'm no server
techie, but here's my limited (and probably flawed) understanding...

The server does not properly register the status of the file and make
it available for other users to access (not even for our shared file).
We would get various error messages, including the file being in used
by other user, being "unable to access the file", or even unable to
locate the file (despite that I double-click on the file itself to open
it!).

Our IT department had a MS Hotfix which seems to have corrected the
problem. I want to say the Hotfix was KB825760, but I can be certain.
That might be something to look into.
 
Back
Top