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Excel 2000 files on NetWare file system

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by jdrake

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We are running a mixed network of Novell 5.1 and Windows 2000 servers. The Novell system runs primarily print and file services, while Windows 200 runs many application services. Our issue, however, is that when one user is working on an Excel spreadsheet stored on a NetWare volume and another user attempts to open the same file, the second user's PC locks up. This is happening with Excel only. All shared word docs allow the second user to open it "read only" with a pop-up window explainingthat userX has document open for editing. When dealing with Excel spreadsheets (.xls) the second user never gets the option to open it "read only" and the Excel application hangs the PC. This is occuring on mostly Windows 2000 Pro clients. Any ideas??

2 replies

by lynbor

You didn't mention which client version you were running on the desktop. I'd start trouble shooting this by seeing if there was a newer version of Novell client for the Win2k clients. And even though Win2k will log into a Novell network without a Novell Client installed, that's not a realiable connection on a Novell network.

If you have the latest Novell client running on the Win2k boxes, I might try un-installing and re-installing the Novell Client. If that didn't improve things I may even try going back to a previous revision of client just to see if it makes a difference.

Lock ups are so hard to diag because you don't get any error message which can be a clue as to where to look for the cause of the problem.

While I don't suspect the server installation to be the problem, you should also make sure that you have the latest Novell 5.x server patches installed as well. You also didn't mention which transport protocol you are using. I know that Novell 5.x installs IP as it's default protocol and that should work just fine, I however, still like to use IPX on the local network if there is no valid reason to have the server running IP.

Don't forget that MS Office also has patches available, so make sure your Excel is fully patched as well.

Hope that helps.

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