Hi Everyone,

Our client recently had their SBS2003 server replaced with Server 2012.

One of their employees has an Excel document open (Office 2007) 24/7 on their Windows 7 PC.

I've done as much research as I can relating to file locks and Excel, mostly the information relates to the Excel file being set to read-only when no-one has the document open, this however is not the case here.

Sometime overnight, the server seems to decide that the file is no longer in use and it becomes read-write. This is a problem as the same spreadsheet is opened on other PC's in the morning, normally for read-only access, but the first person who opens it has read-write access.

When the main user goes to save the document they left open, Excel reports the file in use and requests a new file name.

Originally I thought it was the PC going to sleep and the server deciding that the file should be unlocked as the PC was no longer there, turning off sleep mode did not resolve the problem and I believe SMB2/3 takes sleeping PC's into account for file locking.

As the user has been leaving this document open 24/7 when they had the SBS2003 server, I don't believe the issue is with the workstation. I've temporarily disabled SMB2 and SMB3 to see whether the issue may relate to that, but will need to wait 24 hours to see whether that has helped, although I'm not particularly happy to leave those services disabled permanently.

Anyone who's experienced this problem or can shed any light on the issue, I would be most grateful.

Regards

Tony

• Moved by Mary DongMicrosoft contingent staff Wednesday, June 10, 2015 1:07 AM

Hi Mary,

I've spoken again to the user and the problem appears not to be even an overnight issue.

Today, he had the Excel file open and was actively working on it.

His colleague started his computer and opened the same spreadsheet and where you'd normally get the 'This file is Read-Only' message, the file opened and he had read-write access.

When the original user tried to save the file, he was asked for a new file name.

It appears that the locking of the file is working erratically.

Kind Regards

Tony