Excel 2003 Shared Document Freezes

Question

We have a few users who are sharing a rather large excel file (70 megs) via a network drive. If they save the file after each tiny modification, then there are no problems. But if they try to do a bunch (as little as 10), Excel hangs when they try to save it. Plus, the file becomes locked, so the other needs to rename the file and re-save his work. I've tried to search for this issue, but have had little to no luck.

The network drive is on a local network server (Win Server 2k3, gigabit networking) with plenty of free space, so that shouldn't be the issue. I'm kind of at a loss as to where to go from here. Is this a bug with Excel? Is it just something we're going to have to live with? Or is there something else that I/We are overlooking?

Thanks in advance...

Answer 1

Most of the problems I've seen with shared Excel files have to do with the folder the spreadsheet is in because of temp files, so you can check to make sure all the users using the file have read/write/delete access to the folder (although I'd imagine this is already true because your users can use it normally with 1 change at a time now).

The other thing you can do to try and clean up any issues is reset the sharing. Have everyone close it out, and open it up yourself. In the sharing dialog, it will show you the users who have it open, and you should make sure it only shows yourself. Remove any other users listed as having it open. Then, choose to unshare the file, and save it. Clear out any temp files alongside the spreadsheet, and make sure you (and the other users) can open, save changes, and close the file normally one at a time. If that goes ok, have one person open it and make it shared again. That might clean up whatever issues you were having, but note that this will remove any change history if you keep it.

Another option that you might have is to upgrade Excel. I don't know how possible this is in your situation, but Office 2007 and Office 2010 will handle the large file more efficiently, and this might correct your problem if nothing else works.

Answer 2

We ran into a similar problem. You're not going to believe this. When the Excel sheet locks up you need to reboot the server to clear the locks.
As far as handling the original hang error, I would look to Microsoft.

Answer 3

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Scott Johnson Aug 08,2010