Word crashed - document locked

[charles]

Word 2000 crashed and the document I was editing is now locked. Is there
any way to unlock it? From what I've found I think rebooting the machine
should clear it but I'd like to know if there is a way short of a
reboot.

Thanks.

 

[Bill Foley]

Actually the temporary file needs to be deleted. Open Windows Explorer and
go to the folder where your Word document is. You should see another file
with a "~$" replacing the first two characters of your file name. Delete it
and you should be able to re-open your file and modify it. There is always
a possibility that you might to reboot your system before it will allow you
to delete the file, but I don't think in this case it is required.

Holler back if you have any other problems!

 

[charles]

Actually the temporary file needs to be deleted. Open Windows Explorer and
go to the folder where your Word document is. You should see another file
with a "~$" replacing the first two characters of your file name. Delete it
and you should be able to re-open your file and modify it. There is always
a possibility that you might to reboot your system before it will allow you
to delete the file, but I don't think in this case it is required.

Holler back if you have any other problems!

Thanks but that's the first thing I did (without the reboot) Still
locked.

 

[Bill Foley]

Only other thing I can think of is that there might be some other "temp"
files lingering in your Temp folder. Depending on the OS, they might be in
C:\Windows\Temp or C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName\Local
Settings\Temp.

 

[Graham Mayor]

See http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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[charles]

See http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm

Thanks both of you for your help but nothing worked until reboot. Seems
lame to me to have to reboot a workstation for a word processing
application problem but that's the story.

Appreciate your attention.

 

[Graham Mayor]

The web page article points to the requirement to reboot with some older
operating system in order to unlock the temporary files. This should not be
necessary with Windows XP.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
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