We have 25 users all accessing a windows 2003 fileserver. Almost all of those users use excel extensively (with large linked spreadsheets many larger than 15mb). However, 2 of them are having recurring problems with approximately 3 spreadsheets.

These spreadsheets lock up occasionally (sometimes after the first open, sometimes after a number of opens and closes). What happens is that any user opens these particular files, and finishes with them (sometimes making changes, sometimes not), they cannot then be re-opened. We get the annoying: "This file has been locked by another user do you want to open read only or notify....".

And the file is blatantly no opened by anyone else. The file isn't registered in the file open console, and no other program appears to be accessing it (norton av and veritas backup exec are runniing on that machine). The only way we can then unlock the file is to reboot the file server. And then after someone uses that file a couple of times it locks up again.

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to this. Does anyone have any suggestions?