I have a user that needs an excel document closed. When you try to open it it will tell you that it is opened but it dosn't tell you by whom so it's read only.

I'm thinking the individual who had it open has closed it since there is no name but that it's stuck in their temp files; in which case they need to reboot but we don't know who needs to reboot and we don't reboot machines on the server at night in case we need to push patches to them.

I've tried copying the files to my HD and deleting them from the server but they always reappear. I tried also to take ownership and then deleting them but that does nothing to help.

Does anyone have any other ideas that DO NOT include rebooting the server?

Copy the file's contents over into a new spreadsheet. Then save that under a different name. Abandon the file that gives problems, send an email to all possible users until you find the real owner.

You should also be able to remove the 'read only " attribute as Admin.

The thing is that when you go to properties on the document it dosn't say it's "read only." It says that when you open the document because someone else already has it open.

We did send an e-mail out to the office that has permissions to that folder but we havn't heard back yet to know if that worked (in other words to know if everyone has read their e-mail and done what it said).

I'm sure they have shop meeting over there so hopefully it will be done by this afternoon.

Thank You for the help ;0)