Determine who has a Powerpoint file in use?

[Dale Owens]

Can anyone tell me how to find out who has a powerpoint file open, so I can
cancel the open file. I tried to take ownership of the file, but that did not
work.

 

[Echo S]

Can anyone tell me how to find out who has a powerpoint file open, so I can
cancel the open file. I tried to take ownership of the file, but that did not
work.

Usually if you try to open the file, you'll get a message something like
"xyz.PPT is opened for editing by <so-and-so>. Do you want to open a
read-only copy?"

<so-and-so> is the name of the user that has the file opened. You should be
able to open the file as read only and do a File/Save As with a new name,
and then you can use that file.

Somehow it seems as if there is probably more to this question, though.

 

[Dale Owens]

I appreciate your response and you are correct. It does tell me who has it
open but it is a generic user account "ABB"for some reason. This makes it
difficult to track. I was wondering it there was a tool in Active Directory
or Windows 2000 Server that I could use to deteremine who has the file and
release the connection. As indicated below I tried to take ownership of the
file, but that did not work.

Any suggestions?

Sincerely
Dale

 

[Echo S]

Yeah, that ABB is the name of the user -- if you go to Tools/Options and
then to User Info (Word) or General (PPT), you'd see ABB in the User Name
box. Can you think of anyone with the initials ABB? I'd start with that
machine.

Sorry, I don't know of any tools to determine ownership or release the
connection, but a post in the appropriate Windows group wouldn't hurt.

Just opening as read only and saving with a different name isn't an option?