Truble copying certain file types over a peer-peer network

[Chuck Ritzke]

I've got an annoying problem. I have a new WinXP Pro machine and an older
Win2K Pro laptop.

When I copy files from the desktop to the laptop, I find that certain file
types give me an erroneous "can't copy, file in use" error and abort the
copy. So far, it seems to be files created directly from Adobe Acrobat or
WinZip.

It's not just some OS confusion about whether the file is in use. I've
re-booted and still get the same error on the same files. I've found that I
can copy a file over the network if I make a copy of the file on the
original drive, delete the original, and then rename the copy back to the
original.

Rather than having to do that with each individual file, I end up zipping up
the entire folder. Then copying and renaming the zip file. Then I can copy
the copied zip file over the network. Finally, I then need to unzip them on
the laptop.

This all worked fine when I was copying from my old Win2K machine.

Any idea why this happens and how I can "fix" the files so that they can be
copied?

TIA,
Chuck

 

[Lem]

FWIW, I've had similar experiences in an infrastructure-type network (2 XPPro
sp2 machines & a Linksys router). I'll try to copy a folder of jpg files and
some of them result in the same error you describe. And naturally, the folder
copy mechanism doesn't have an option to skip "bad" files and copy the rest; it
just stops, letting you attempt to figure out what got copied and what didn't.

I've checked and it doesn't seem to be a permissions issue, the files really are
not in use, the user doing the copy is not a limited user, and the files don't
seem to be corrupt. The files can be opened on the original pc and by moving
them to a different directory on the original machine I usually can get them
copied over the network to the other one. About the only common denominator
I've noticed is the pictures in the files that cause the problem are in
"portrait" orientation rather than "landscape." Why this should have any effect
eludes me.

I'd be interested if anyone has a suggestion for dealing with this issue, but
I've given up thinking that I can get Windows to work properly and reliably all
the time. As long is it behaves reasonably well most of the time, I figure I'm
ahead of the game.

 

[Chuck Ritzke]

No ideas?