Microsoft Office document is "locked for editing by 'another user'"

A few of my users are in and out of various Excel 2007 spreadsheets all day. One of them reports that "50% of the time" she tries to open a spreadsheet from the file server, an information message comes up stating:

foo.xlsx is locked for editing by 'another user'. Open "Read-Only" or click "Notify" to open read-only and receive notification
when the document is no longer in use.

Nine times out of ten the document is not open by another user. My users immediately try to open the same document again, and it works. I imagine this is caused by Excel leaving owner files on the server, but I do not know why. An added clue: When one of my users selects "Notify," a dialog pops up in a moment informing them the file is available for them to edit. Any guidance on how to solve this issue and make my users' days flow better?

I posted a similar basic-IT question on serverfault a few days ago and it got moved here. I'm stuck in the gray area between these two sites.

11 Answers 11

• Word previously quit improperly and, therefore, did not delete the owner file. -or-
• A second instance of Word is running in the background with the document already open. -or-
• The document is shared over a network, and another user has it open.

From my personal experience, I've found a combination of the first and third point above can recreate this error quite constantly.

Temp files, left next to the original file on the network (especially if the file is large, she copy-pastes a LOT or it is open all day) are the cause.

1. Quit all instances of Word. To do so, follow these steps: 1. Save all your work, and then quit all programs. 2. Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to open the Windows Security dialog box. 3. Click Task Manager, and then click the Processes tab. 4. Click Winword.exe, and then click End Process. 5. In the Task Manager Warning dialog box, click Yes. If you receive a message that states that the program is not responding, click End Now. 6. Repeat steps d and e for each occurrence of Winword.exe. 7. On the File menu, click Exit Task Manager.
2. Start Windows Explorer, and then browse to the folder that contains the document file that you tried to open when you received the error message.
3. Delete the owner file. The owner file is located in the same folder as the document that you tried to open. The owner file name uses the following convention: It begins with a tilde (~), followed by a dollar sign ($), followed by the remainder of the document file name. The file name extension is .doc. For example, the owner file for Document.doc is named ~$cument.doc.
4. Start Word. If Word asks you whether you want to load the changes that were made to the Global or Normal template, click No.
5. Open your document.

Additional note for documents shared over a network:

If there are multiple people that could be editing the doc, it can sometimes be hard to figure out who might have the doc open. As shown on TechTalkMadness, the best way to find the answer is to use Computer Management on the system that hosts the shared file.

Go to Computer Management -> System Tools -> Shared Folders -> Open Files to find out who has a document locked. If the user can't be contacted to disconnect themselves, you can forcefully do so by right clicking the locked file and selecting Close Open File (warning: the user might lose their changes).