2 people accessing excel 2000 file

[eschnepper]

I have a Windows 2003 server R2 Sp1 and XP SP2 workstations with Office 2000. Occasionally 2 users are able to access the same excel 2000 spreadsheet at the same time without receiving a file open notice until the second user tries to save the file. Then they receive a message stating that the file is in use and that they can do a save as. Usually if a user tries to access a file that is already in use, they receive a file in use popup and they are given the choice to open read only, notify or close. This issue does not happen all the time and is not specific to one particular file. And the file was never setup for sharing. I've checked my security and permissions for the shares and I don't see a solution. I've suspected file corruption and copied the data into a new file and replaced the old file thinking that would solve the problem and no luck. Is there something I'm missing?

[puntoMX]

Well, it should work if you do the following:

From the Tools menu, select Protection, and then Allow Users to Edit Ranges. This advanced option allows multiple users (for example, when working on a network) to update data in a well defined and private area. Each workbook user is allotted a range in the sheet with a unique password.

I suppose you did this?

[eschnepper]

Thanks for the info, while I forgot about that, and it could be a good workaround, I'm afraid that I can't use that as a solution especially since the issue is occuring on multiple spreadsheets and the error isn't happening consistently. If you think of anything else, it would be greatly appreciated.