Sharing violation when running Excel 2003 on Vista

We have a problem with Excel 2003 running on Vista.

We have several spreadsheets which are used by multiple users, and which are
configured as shared workbooks. On our XP machines we have never had a
problem with them, but under Vista, we seem to get the following error when
trying to save them even if nobody else has the sheet open

'Your changes could not be saved to '(name).xls' because of a sharing
violation. Try saving to a different file.

This then results in a file with a name containing a mixture of letters and
numbers (and no extension) appearing in the same directory as the original
spreadsheet. These files cannot be deleted as an error saying they are in use
appears - even when they aren't in use. They can only be deleted once the
server has been rebooted. If the original file is opened on an XP machine
after somebody has tried to save it on a Vista machine the Vista user is
still shown as editing the sheet - even if their computer has been restarted.

This problem seems to affect all of our Vista machines, but none of the XP
ones -and all of them are running Excel 2003. Anyone know what I can do about
it? I've tried all the usual things like checking file access permissions.

You may receive a "Your changes could not be saved" error message
when you try to save a file to a network drive in Excel
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813973/en-us

Make sure Excel 2003 is updated with Office Service Pack 3.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows Vista Enthusiast

---------------------------------------------------------------

"David Bryant" wrote:

We have a problem with Excel 2003 running on Vista.

We have several spreadsheets which are used by multiple users, and which are
configured as shared workbooks. On our XP machines we have never had a
problem with them, but under Vista, we seem to get the following error when
trying to save them even if nobody else has the sheet open

'Your changes could not be saved to '(name).xls' because of a sharing
violation. Try saving to a different file.

This then results in a file with a name containing a mixture of letters and
numbers (and no extension) appearing in the same directory as the original
spreadsheet. These files cannot be deleted as an error saying they are in use
appears - even when they aren't in use. They can only be deleted once the
server has been rebooted. If the original file is opened on an XP machine
after somebody has tried to save it on a Vista machine the Vista user is
still shown as editing the sheet - even if their computer has been restarted.

This problem seems to affect all of our Vista machines, but none of the XP
ones -and all of them are running Excel 2003. Anyone know what I can do about
it? I've tried all the usual things like checking file access permissions.

> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813973/en-us

The users do have full access over the folders, including modify and delete.
In fact, one of the users is a network admin.

> Make sure Excel 2003 is updated with Office Service Pack 3.

All of our computers are fully up-to-date with service packs and patches for
both Windows and Office. The only exception is some of the Vista computers,
where SP1 doesn't appear in automatic updates so I assume there must be a
hardware issue causing it to be blocked.

Hi David

Did you resolve this? I have the same issue, in fact I make a test. I log in
on a XP machine with the same account that I have problems in Vista and in XP
I don't have any problem.
I have this issue with only 2 excel sheet on that shared folder so I use one
of the saved file and deleted the previous. Until now I don't have the
problem again but I know that I can't do this anytime when this problem
occurs.
If a solve this I leto you know.

"David Bryant" wrote:

> > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813973/en-us
>
> The users do have full access over the folders, including modify and delete.
> In fact, one of the users is a network admin.
>
> > Make sure Excel 2003 is updated with Office Service Pack 3.
>
> All of our computers are fully up-to-date with service packs and patches for
> both Windows and Office. The only exception is some of the Vista computers,
> where SP1 doesn't appear in automatic updates so I assume there must be a
> hardware issue causing it to be blocked.

We had the same hassle and after many hours discovered the following - the
issue was not (at least in our case) a hassle of faulty files or
installation, but rather a clash of head between the indexer (native to
vista) and excel - simple solution - edit the properties for the folder and
disable indexing on the folder and abracadabra the problem went away. Funny
that Vista and office 2007 can’t share a file..... but hey it works. What I
have done on my users now is create a non indexed working folder. When users
are working - especially with large files that take a while to index they
move them to this folder and work undisturbed by vista. Then when finished
they get moved to a regular folder to take advantage of the indexing feature.