Correct User Information not showing, only shows "another user"

M

Monalisa

We've recently upgraded some PC's from Office XP to Office 2007. I have
several Excel spreadsheets that are edited by multiple users. When the user
with Office XP has a .xlsx file open (this is not an issue with .xls files)
and another user with Office 2007 attempts to open it the same file, the
Office 2007 user only sees that the file is in user by "another user",
reather than "File in Use by 'username' ".

I've searched Google and this forum, as well as the MS Knowledgebase and
have only found one post regarding this issue. The response that was given
was "After checking on some Microsoft forums, it looks like Excel 2007
doesn't write the owning users name in the workbook, unlike earlier versions,
so it's not available.". I don't believe that to be true because I opened
the same .xlsx document on two different PC's, both with Office 2007 and it
DID show "File in Use by 'username' ", where username correctly identified
the person who had the document opened first.

Hopefullly this explaination isn't too confusing, but if you have questions,
I'll be happy to answer them to clarify.

Thanks in advance.
 
J

Jan Karel Pieterse

Hi Monalisa,
We've recently upgraded some PC's from Office XP to Office 2007. I have
several Excel spreadsheets that are edited by multiple users. When the user
with Office XP has a .xlsx file open (this is not an issue with .xls files)
and another user with Office 2007 attempts to open it the same file, the
Office 2007 user only sees that the file is in user by "another user",
reather than "File in Use by 'username' ".
Click to expand...

I think it is like this:
Excel XP does not actually open the xlsx file directly. The OpenXML converter
utility opens the Excel 2007 file, then writes a temporary file in xls format
and hands that over to Excel XP. The converter tool keeps the xlsx file open
and obviously does NOT tell the operating system what the user name is.

BTW: I advise you not to share Excel workbooks, it is a buggy feature. It is
error prone because you risk loss of data, wrong data and corruption of the
workbooks.
And things get worse of multiple Excel versions are involved.

If multiple people have to edit information, do not use Excel, consider
building a database application.
Or don't share the workbook and have everyone do their edits in turn if you
insist on using Excel.

Seriously: stop sharing workbooks, even more so in a mixed Office versions
environment

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com
 
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