Another user has a tab delimited text file named myFile.xls open on a
server, writing to the file with Labview, and periodically flushing to
disk. While he still has the file open, I open the same file in excel using
workbooks.open, with ReadOnly:= true. The Labview user tells me this
freezes the file so that he can no longer write to it.

How can I avoid having Excel open for exclusive use, even though it is read
only, and already open by someone else?

If I can't do that, then how can I check the status of the file to make sure
that no one has it open before I try to open it?

John