File being used by ... Do you want to make a copy?

I have a machine with XP HOME. There is only one user account (named SHIPPING).

Whenever I open a WORD document, I get the message:

"C:\...DOC is being used by SHIPPING. Do you want to make a copy?"

If I select OK, I get the further message:

"Word cannot open the document ..."

I don't understand.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Terry

PS> I didn't know where to start this thread. Sorry if this is the wrong section.

I have discovered that if I open WORD and then drill down to a document and open it, there is no warning message.

The message only occurs if I double-click on the document icon on the desktop or in the MY DOCUMENTS folder.

Lots of tips here including renaming normal.dot amongst others that may help you find the problem

Thanks for the lead but there was nothing there applicable to this problem.

I'm not sure the problem is in WORD or in XP.

I have been having the same problem when I open Word documents. I was just curious what version of Word you are using. I am currently using Word 97 and Win XP Home. If I find anything that might help, I will post it here.

Hi, I wonder if you have norton, there is an known issue with this and norton if so disable norton and see how you go.

Thanks.

I'm running XP HOME, WORD 97 and (yes) NORTON. I'll try disabling NORTON when I get back to work on Tuesday and see what happens.

Curiously, however, I'm running all three on my personal computer at home and don't have that problem there.

Hi, just thought u could try a few of these suggestions.

1. Try copying the document to another location, completely different folder or even drive letter if possible, then try opening it.

2. Maybe try going into the Users option in control panel, check if your account is set to an administrator or guest, i'd set to admin as normally best option if the pc only has one account. Maybe create a new account to test it, create a new guest account and log in as that user then open the doc, that will tell u if its windows causing the error or not.

3. I used to use this on the support lines loads when giving out advise, quite a handy tool. Go into start menu, then Run and type in Winword -a and then press enter or click ok. This resets alot of options in Word including resetting toolbars to defaults and more, if theres an option altered in word then maybe this might clear it.

Hope these help you... cya.

I tried disabling NORTON but the problem still occurs.

Some of the documents are in MY DOCUMENTS while others are in the SHARED FOLDER. It doesn't matter where they are - they all generate this same warning.

I created another user but the problem remains for both users then.

I tried WINWORD -A but nothing changes.

We're back to square one, I guess.

Disabling the Indexing service often fixes the problem you're having.

Go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Services, scroll down to and double click on Indexing. Click on the Stop button. Click on the drop-down list next to "Startup Type," click on "Disabled" in that list, click OK.

I disable the Indexing service on all the XP machines I maintain. It's supposed to keep XP aware of where all the files are on the drive so they can be accessed faster. I've never seen any faster access with it running but I have seen it create problems.

When a file is accessed through Windows Explorer instead of through a program's File>Open option, Windows will proceed to index every file in that folder...making them all "in use." If there are a lot of files, or some huge files or a corrupt file in that folder, XP will either take a long time to get them all indexed to its satisfaction or, in the case of a corrupt file, it may never be able to get it indexed but it never quits trying.

Thanks for the suggestion.

The Indexing service was set to MANUAL. I DISABLE-d it.

Unfortunately, there is no difference. It still wants to open a copy.

Have we ascertained yet whether it's WORD or XP that's causing the problem?

As I said, it only happens when I double click on a document icon and NOT when I open files within WORD. Is this any clue?

I have discovered this morning that this same problem exists with EXCEL. Though the message is different ("A document ... is already open. You cannot open two documents with the same name ...") the meaning is the same.

Curiously, I have some old WordStar documents (and have installed WordStar) and have no problem double-clicking their icons to open them.

It sounds to me like a MS OFFICE problem. Any solutions or suggestions?

Well, since I came to the conclusion that the problem here was with MS OFFICE, I decided to remove OFFICE completely.

I then began to install only the sections that I need (in this case, WORD and EXCEL).

I successfully installed only those two sections and my "is being used" problem disappeared.

It may not be a true fix, but it is a work-around that I can live with.

Thanks to all for your suggestions and help.

Terry