Hello all,

A couple of end users have encountered the above problem. They make changes to pptx files and after the file saves, the file becomes read only (says so on the program window). If they are not paying attention, then any other changes they make to the file need to be saved to another file, which needless to say, is very annoying.

They have saved the file, file becomes read-only, then if they close the file and open it back up, it's fine; they can edit and save.

It happens sporadic.  Could it be an autosave happening at the same time? Any others experiencing this?

Any help would be appreciated!

JB

Hi

 

Thank you for using Microsoft Office for IT Professionals Forums.

 

From your description, I understand that you want to allow changes by more than one user at the same time in PowerPoint . If there is any misunderstanding, please feel free to let me know.

 

In Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, multiple authors can simultaneously change the same presentation stored on a server.

 

The new co-authoring functionality in Microsoft Office 2010 makes it possible for multiple users to work productively on the same document without intruding on one another’s work or locking each other out.

 

More detailed information you can refer to this article Work on a presentation at the same time as your colleagues

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/work-on-a-presentation-at-the-same-time-as-your-colleagues-HA010344967.aspx#BM2

 

Please take your time to try the suggestions and let me know the results at your earliest convenience. If anything is unclear or if there is anything I can do for you, please feel free to let me know.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Sincerely

William Zhou CHN

• Marked as answer by Max MengMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Monday, May 02, 2011 8:25 AM
• Unmarked as answer by William Zhou CHN Monday, May 02, 2011 8:49 AM
• Marked as answer by Max MengMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Monday, May 09, 2011 8:31 AM

Hi

 

Thank you for using Microsoft Office for IT Professionals Forums.

 

From your description, I understand that you want to allow changes by more than one user at the same time in PowerPoint . If there is any misunderstanding, please feel free to let me know.

 

In Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, multiple authors can simultaneously change the same presentation stored on a server.

 

The new co-authoring functionality in Microsoft Office 2010 makes it possible for multiple users to work productively on the same document without intruding on one another’s work or locking each other out.

 

More detailed information you can refer to this article Work on a presentation at the same time as your colleagues

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/work-on-a-presentation-at-the-same-time-as-your-colleagues-HA010344967.aspx#BM2

 

Please take your time to try the suggestions and let me know the results at your earliest convenience. If anything is unclear or if there is anything I can do for you, please feel free to let me know.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Sincerely

William Zhou CHN

Hi William,

Thanks for the response and info. I should have better worded my question. As far as I know, only one person is editing a presentation file at a time.  The user saves it and after it saves, the title bar says the presentation is Read Only.

I just mentioned that several end users have experienced this issue as it was not an isolated case only experienced by one user.

Thanks again!

JB

Hi JazzBass

 

Please check user's permission  make sure the user has full control permission(Read/Write) on the network share folder.

 

 

Sincerely

William Zhou CHN

 

Thanks William.

I believe the network share is accessible to all members of the Domain User group and have full control permission.

I will verify that and see what happens.

Thanks again!

JB

Hi William

I am expeirncing the same with 1 of my users, and am wondering if it is linked to offline files, or sync center as it is actually a windows 7 machine. If JazzBass is experiencing same issue as me the user can work perfectly ok for an hour or 2 then all of a sudden 1 click on the save button and the file goes read only.

 

Martyn

My company has several users with the same issue. While editing a Powerpoint 2010 document it will become read-only. They have been able to change the document type to Powerpoint 2003 and save it as that. It appears that one of the annoying security provisions in Office 2010 may have run a muck. Either a collaboration feature or marking the document as FINAL is trying to take over the world.

Note: these are single user documents stored on a network file share. They are not collaborating and they have not marked them as FINAL. Yes, they have full control on the network drive and they edit all kinds of Office documents there all day long.

I am experiencing the same difficulty as Dshanks.  I am a single user saving items within my documents and files are being converted to a read only file.

• Proposed as answer by Ryan98034 20 hours 33 minutes ago
• Unproposed as answer by Ryan98034 20 hours 32 minutes ago

I am experiencing the same difficulty as Dshanks.  I am a single user saving items within my documents and files are being converted to a read only file.

• Proposed as answer by Ryan98034 Wednesday, March 04, 2015 7:04 PM
• Unproposed as answer by Ryan98034 Wednesday, March 04, 2015 7:04 PM

I am experiencing the same difficulty as Dshanks.  I am a single user saving items within my documents and files are being converted to a read only file.

We also have the same problems company-wide.  If you re-open a powerpoint file on the network, it often opens read-only, even if no one else has it open.  And it doesn't give you a warning that it is read-only.  The only work-around we could find is to end the Powerpoint process in the task manager's process manager.  After powerpoint closes that process is still running, often using a lot of resources.  Why does it need to keep running?

 

I also have a lot of problems with linked charts.  sometimes the links will just mess up and get overwritten with other links in the file.  Sometimes the file opens in Protected View.  Sometimes the links just don't take you anywhere when you double click on them and there is an error message.

Has anyone at all found a solution to this yet?

We used Office 2007 on XP clients for years with no problems. Now all our users connect to a Server 2008R2 Terminal server, again using Office 2007 and now we've started having this problem. Also I'd like to add that this affects Word and Excel, as well as Powerpoint. I have read through quite a few forums on this and no-one seems to have found the cause, only unsatisfactory workarounds. To test I tried disbaling the AV but that didn't work and neither did disabling Autorecover, although neither one would have been a workable solution really.

I'm not quite sure where to go from here :-(

• Edited by getcarter15 Thursday, November 10, 2011 2:32 PM

Has anyone at all found a solution to this yet?

We used Office 2007 on XP clients for years with no problems. Now all our users connect to a Server 2008R2 Terminal server, again using Office 2007 and now we've started having this problem. Also I'd like to add that this affects Word and Excel, as well as Powerpoint. I have read through quite a few forums on this and no-one seems to have found the cause, only unsatisfactory workarounds. To test I tried disbaling the AV but that didn't work and neither did disabling Autorecover, although neither one would have been a workable solution really.

I'm not quite sure where to go from here :-(

Just a bump to this thread with a report that we're having the same problem as well.

 - Netbooks running Windows 7 and Office Professional Plus 2010

 - Users create and save Powerpoint (pptx) files.

 - Users go back into the files and do some work. Without warning, suddenly the files become read-only. They can only save the file as a new version.

- Users have Modify  / Read & Execute / List Folder Contents / Read / Write access to the folder where the pptx file is stored. The only network right they don't have is full control. The answer from 2nd May says that the user needs Read / Write access but then calls that "full control" - it would be useful to clarify whether the "Full control" permission is what needs to be set up?

Seems as if Powerpoint is making the files read-only at some point whilst they are in use.

Has anyone tried logging off the users and deleting the user profile settings then logging them on again?

Hi Guys, has anyone managed to find a solution to this issue i am having the same problem as well, when i change the file to ppt it works fine but surely i can't change all my pptx files to ppt, please assist

Hi All, unfortunately I've not got a fix but I've been able to generate the problem pretty much at will so at least that can aid in hopefully fixing the issue. If I open the pptx file and start continously saving it and then ask a colleague to keep tryiong to open the file at the same time eventually it should break and you get the read only error. A number of users here have had the issue, but only on heavily shared documents where someone is likely to saving while someone else is opening the file. I can generate fault with ppt and pptx files so don't think that's the fix.

It seems to be related to Windows 7 that we recently upgraded to - we use Office 2007 btw. Our Servers are Server 2008 R2 but i can also generate the fault on Windows Server 2003 and even shared a file off a Windows 7 machine and still got the fault so I think it's the client rather than the shared drive.

I'm going to continue to google for a fix and then log a call with Microsoft if I can't get a fix. The problem happens when we're working on the most important documents so i'm not too popular at the moment. 

  

   

Hi Guys, Did anybody got some solution on this !!!

This is happening to us as well, it is sooooo annoying. Could Microsoft propose some sort of solution to this as it's been almost a year already and still no fix!!?

The problem is really sporadic and I've got Windows 7 and PPT 10 as well.

This is also happening at our company. In line with the others we have had users log in and out, the error is even happening with users with Admin rights. 

We're using Office 2010 on Windows 7 PCs and Novell servers.

• Edited by Vince SW Friday, March 09, 2012 7:06 PM

This is also happening at our company. In line with the others we have had users log in and out, the error is even happening with users with Admin rights. 

We're using Office 2010 on Windows 7 PCs and Novell servers.

OK. This solution came from Novell, so perhaps it does not apply to all of you but here goes. 

In Windows Explorer, turn off the Details pane.  To do this, use the following steps:

1) Open Windows Explorer
2) Select Organize | Layout and un-check the Details pane option 

http://www.novell.com/support/php/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=7007172&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_TID_1_1&dialogID=312980220&stateId=0%200%20312978335

This worked in our environment. I have no idea why this would cause this problem but the solution worked.

Hope this helps. 

I can't remember which forum I read this from, so I can't give the credit.

This lousy solution worked for me:

1. Delete all files from the C:\Windows\temp folder

2. Reboot

I don't know what the effect of clearing the temp folder was. The reboot may have been sufficient, as I rarely ever restart my computer.

Not elegant, but at least my files are no longer read-only.

Hope this helps;

drW

Hi,

  this may or may not be the problem, but I am working with a 2007 PPTX file that has many links with in embedded charts and objects and a macro (in another file) that opens these objects and charts to update them.

I have windows XP Pro and Office 2007, I have created the files.

My co-workers have Win7 and Office 2010.  We they attempt to run the update macros on the PPTX files they get the Read-Only file message when trying to save, but not all of them have this problem.

The Solution:  The ones with PowerPivot installed and turned on were having the read-only problem and once PowerPivot was either uninstalled or turned off, the read-only problem stopped.

I tried this and it worked instantly.  Selecting Organize/Layout>  and de-selecting the Details Pane allowed PPT to open files on my local drive that had previously opened as [Read Only].  If you go back to displaying the Details Pane, the files go back to opening as Read Only.

I had had the same behavior with Word 2010, but on an intermittant basis, and closing the Word doc and then re-opening usually fixed the problem.

Because I applied the above fix to all of my folders, I expect that this will also resolve problem with Word.

Thanks very much for the posting.

Todd

I am trying "View SW's" work around from above to see if it works and resolves my reported issue to my company's service desk.

We have been running Win 7 Enterprise Edition for nearly 18 months and this reported issue just began about 3-4 weeks ago. My administrative secretary opens her power point presentation several times daily, works in it a while, then saves it from time to time.           Then all of a sudden on a random basis the file will return the error it is read only? Hope this fixes the issue.

She is the only person which ever opens this file as it is on her local drive located in her My Documents folder. She has full rights on every folder that she would save / open files to / from... hopefully this corrects the reported issue.

Thanks View SW for the posting above.

Doug

Hello People,

Was this issue solved, since i cant find a solution online. It looks like the problem is from Office 2010 Professional. With mine which is 2010 Stardard never did it. Can anyone help?

Thanks

Ruben

• Edited by RubenDHili Monday, July 16, 2012 8:01 AM
• Proposed as answer by GoddyGirlNZ Wednesday, September 05, 2012 12:11 AM
• Unproposed as answer by GoddyGirlNZ Wednesday, September 05, 2012 12:11 AM

Hello People,

Was this issue solved, since i cant find a solution online. It looks like the problem is from Office 2010 Professional. With mine which is 2010 Stardard never did it. Can anyone help?

Thanks

Ruben

We have had the same thing with some of our users, however, saving it down to Powerpoint 97-2003 presentation has proved to be a workaround.  Seems to me that it is only happening on 'rehashed' presentations (i.e., getting an old preso, changing it and saving it as a new one).  Seems it gets too much 'rubbish' in the background.   If they start a new preso using our company template, there are no problems. 

I see the same issue with ppt 2007 on Windows 7 as well. The solution proposed by 'Vince SW' worked for me:

In Windows Explorer, turn off the Details pane.  To do this, use the following steps:

1) Open Windows Explorer
2) Select Organize | Layout and un-check the Details pane option 

• Proposed as answer by gus_reyes01 Monday, March 24, 2014 4:04 PM

I see the same issue with ppt 2007 on Windows 7 as well. The solution proposed by 'Vince SW' worked for me:

In Windows Explorer, turn off the Details pane.  To do this, use the following steps:

1) Open Windows Explorer
2) Select Organize | Layout and un-check the Details pane option 

I have run into the same issue while trying to revamp old powerpoint documents. I am using Windows Vista with Office 2007.

Solution:

This seems to be working for now. Save the document as a 2003 or below. Then re-open it and save it again as a 2007 document. This will save over the old document with the same data and seems to clear the problem.

Do we have any news about this issue?

Do we have any response from Microsoft?

The problem occurred to the CFO of my company when he started editing an old Powerpoint presentation in Powerpoint 2010 and Windows 7. The solution with the deactivation of Details pane didn't work. The saving of the file to a local drive didn't also work.

The save as in ppt 2003 and then again in pptx gives a list of messages about charts with data cells outside the old excel row and column limits, also about shapes and text that cannot be edited, also grouped shapes, smartart graphics,animations etc.

As you understand it is difficult to check a file of 70 slides that contain a huge number of various objects.

So, is there something new?

Thank a lot

This is becoming very frustrating for all users. You double click a PowerPoint file and it 'randomly' opens as 'read only'.

I have tried various things from the obvious (no none of the files are actually marked as read only), to less obvious, disabling antivirus and firewall.

The network share is on a non windows file server, but in XP we do not have the same problem, all users can double-click a file and it opens normally. The same file when double clicked in 7 opens as read only.  But this is not suitable for most users as they simply want to double click a file and start working on it. Many are frustrated at having to save a worked on file as 'another copy'. This creates multiple versions of the same files all over the network.

The same file can be copied to a local drive and opens up fine, it's just on a network share.

Same problem applies on a Win2003 network share as it does a non windows network share.

Any ideas?

• Edited by Jwallndc Thursday, November 08, 2012 9:12 PM

This is becoming very frustrating for all users. You double click a PowerPoint file and it 'randomly' opens as 'read only'.

I have tried various things from the obvious (no none of the files are actually marked as read only), to less obvious, disabling antivirus and firewall.

The network share is on a non windows file server, but in XP we do not have the same problem, all users can double-click a file and it opens normally. The same file when double clicked in 7 opens as read only.  But this is not suitable for most users as they simply want to double click a file and start working on it. Many are frustrated at having to save a worked on file as 'another copy'. This creates multiple versions of the same files all over the network.

The same file can be copied to a local drive and opens up fine, it's just on a network share.

Same problem applies on a Win2003 network share as it does a non windows network share.

Any ideas?

We are having the same issue. Users work in a pptx saved to C: drive, some have linked excel files, some do not. Users works for period of time then when saving returns read only error. I have been able to save as ppt but when converting the ppt to pptx i get the same error again. I tried SW's fix but did not work for us. 

Vince SW solution worked for me. Thanks

• Edited by Loida Thursday, January 10, 2013 4:39 PM

Vince SW solution worked for me. Thanks

Same issue of not being able to save on Powerpoint 2007 and Win 7 Enterprise Edition. The only difference for me is that the pptx file doesn't show as read only in Explorer, and that the inability to save is apparently random, ie can't save for 10 minutes (trying 5 times) and then all of a sudden, it works fine twice but blocks again at the third save... All rather frustrating...

As my company runs EFS on our My Documents folder, I thought that could be a reason, has anyone else investigated that route?

I've tried the save as in Poweproint 2003 ppt format and then back to pptx, no change.

Reading GoddyGirlNZ post about rehashed presos (Seems to me that it is only happening on 'rehashed' presentations (i.e., getting an old preso, changing it and saving it as a new one).  Seems it gets too much 'rubbish' in the background.   If they start a new preso using our company template, there are no problems. ): I do that all the time, so I'll try starting from a empty template to see if it makes a difference.

And I wish MS would do something about this...

It happens to me as well: PowerPoint 2010, Windows 7 x64, no Network share, I'm the only user working on the file (in fact, I'm even the only user on the machine). It started all of a sudden and now happens annoyingly often. I'll try to switch off the details pane, as suggested by others before.

Extremely frustrating there is no answer yet.  PowerPoint 2010 WIN 7 x64 (no network sharing), I also am the only user of my machine.  I use PowerPoint 2010 continuously throughout the day.  I have to chronically select the save button to prevent lost work.  I seem to notice mostly when opening any embedded WORD or EXCEL docs within any PowerPoint page.  I just now inserted a few blank pages within all the PowerPoint pages and this also triggered the "ReadONLY" issue.  A couple of weeks ago, I somehow lost the entire PowerPoint file, and I know it was related since it was giving me the "ReadONLY" spill and forced me to close the file without saving.  It seemed to erase the orginal file completely from my computer, could not find anywhere even after complete computer key word search and checked within the computer recycle bend.

Additionally, PowerPoint 2010 tells me "ReadONLY" do I want to save as another file, but it will not even let me save under a new file name, I have to lose any unsaved work, close the file, and go back to original file to start over.

I hope Microsoft gets a fix fast, this is a disaster!!!!

Hi All

I know this is an old thread but it ranks at the top of a search for 'powerpoint files read only'. I think I have a simple resolution for this issue, where you are a single user and are not using the collaboration option.

This morning I opened an older PP deck that I had in order to update the branding. I then closed it and re-opened to confirm that the file looked right before emailing it out. It opened with the Read-Only statement showing in the title bar and even though I did want to make a simple change (resetting the saved deck at Slide 1 instead of Slide 12) I could not save as I got an error with the Read Only flag. The error within Powerpoint stated that the file was in use on the network or words to that effect.

My fix is:

1. Close Powerpoint.

2. Open Task Manager (Right click task bar -> Start Task Manager) and under the Processes tab

3. Look for a Powerpoint process and select End Process (click ok to kill it as you are the only user - right?)

4. Reopen your file in Powerpoint

Seems that Powerpoint is holding the file open with an incomplete process when the app is closed. This means the most recently used file is flagged as still in use by that process and opening the file again is done with a read-only process as a result.

For the record this is Windows 7 x64 with Office 2010.

Hope this helps.

Tony

http://howden.net.au/thowden/2013/08/powerpoint-file-opens-read-only-for-single-user/

• Proposed as answer by thowden Saturday, August 03, 2013 11:29 PM

This solved my problem.  I had been encountering this using PPT 2010 on Win7 Enterprise, while saving files to my local drive.  I checked and determined that there were two PPT processes running, and closing all PPT windows only removed one of them.  I killed the other one and was able to re-open the problem file without it being read only.

Thanks very much!

Yep here too. A total PIA. Checked permissions and there in no place to chage permissions. Go in and out and it is read only. There is no security icon on the bottom. Some glitch in PP. I hate it when people give answers to questions you didn't ask and not the question you asked because they didn't bother to actually read you question.

Clearly a very obnoxious power point issue in PP 10.

Did not work for me. Could not remove 23 files as it said they were open, but they were not.

We are having the same problem in our primary school for ICT lessons. The children produce the PPs only to be unable to save them (read only). I totally understand how frustrating this can be for all especially when Microsoft do not respond or perhaps they want this one to simply go away!

After reading the threads I will try some of the solutions, so thanks guys.

I don't know if this is the answer, but it just happened to me, I had 2 PowerPoint files open at the same time (Unrelated to each other), I was applying changes to the one, saving when I wanted to keep changes I had made, after my last save I tried some changes but didn't like them and decided was better to leave it the way it was after my last save, so clicked to close the file without saving, tried to open it again and then it became read only. I'm the only user on my laptop and the only one working on this file, it isn't shared on my home network, and the only way to access it is via my laptop and I'm the only one with access to my laptop. The way I got it to get back to normal was to close the file as well as the other (unrelated) PowerPoint file I had still open at the time. So basically when no PowerPoint files were longer in any use, I was then able to open the file normally again. It might have to do with the autosaves as well, just to be certain I have now unchecked the box next to keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving.

• Proposed as answer by lindakimvdb Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:33 PM
• Unproposed as answer by lindakimvdb Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:33 PM
• Proposed as answer by edst Wednesday, April 02, 2014 3:53 PM

Wonderful fix! Your solution was extremely useful. Thankyou.

I am encountering this issue too.  When editing a presentation in PPT 2013, I will get a pop-up indicating that it is read only and then I will have to save as a new file name to continue.  This is usually acompanied by file corruption (I lose images in the PPT and need to exit and restart to continue)  It only happens in PPT 2013 and when I open the same file in PPT 2010 this does not occur.  This bug has been around since RTM and is still not fixed with the current service pack.

This worked for me. Thanks!

This is happening to me too.  I just bought a new Windows 8 Laptop, with Office 2013.  I opened a presentation that I'd been working on on my previous laptop with Office 2010, and now I'm encountering this 'read only' issue.  Help!?!?  Please!!

Single user on a Win 7 laptop with PPT 2010. I usually notice this only when I've got several presentations open for editing. At some point, I re-open one and it shows as [Read Only]. Very annoying. If you close the file and try to rename it in Windows Explorer, you get an error that it's still open by PowerPoint. The solution appears to be to close out of all open presentations, check task manager and ensure PowerPoint isn't running, then re-open your files.

Seems like PPT keeps an open file pointer when you're saving one file and jump to another to edit. Clearly a bug that may get worse on file shares where it takes longer to save a file. Completely close out and reopen files.

• Proposed as answer by lindakimvdb Tuesday, April 15, 2014 5:46 PM

Also happening with Powerpoint 2010 with embedded Excel 2010 file and Windows 7, no network, have tried the DEP thing and the Details thing nothing works..i have now spent three full days on making a change and then saving, making a change and saving, etc until it won't allow me to save.

I have checked the save status and then gone back to save and the save box has flipped to Read Only. This is ridiculous, instead of focusing on killing XP how about fixing things that are really broken.

ah, if only I even had a temp folder. I don't. :(

So years after the first report, I have the same issue. The suggestions above about temp folder clearing, etc. do not work. So, what's up oh super-folks at Microsoft? If the issue is unknown, it'd be nice to hear that if nothing else. 

Office 2010

Windows 7 enterprise

This solution worked for me as well.

Very strange problem. When you enable the detail pane again the problem comes back so disabling this option is the only solution for now.

Thanks!

As I stated in my previous reply, the solution about disabling the details/preview pane worked for me.

After some more digging, I found an explanation for this problem.

Apparently when the preview/details pane is enabled, a preview of the PPT file is showed, which is using a hidden instance of Powerpoint to show this. Sp the hidden instance has the PPT file open.

Now if someone else wants to open the file, and the preview pane is showing the ppt (so the hidden instance is using the file), that person will open the PPT file in read only.

I found what i think may be a solution.  Go into the properties of the file and change the Author to yourself.  We would re-use powerpoints and make them our own and i think this is where the problem was happening.

I could replicate the error by:

** in powerpoint, open the file using the recent history link.  This was a network file i was opening.

** make one edit

** click the save icon at the very top on the title bar (save directly, not save as)

trying to disable carbonite on the server now...  maybe?