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Excel file opening error

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11 replies

by enoble

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I received an error message trying to open a file that was created in Excel 97 and last saved before we upgraded. The error message is: cannot be accessed. Teh file may be read-only, or you may be trying to access a read-only location. Or, the server the document is stored on may not be responding. We have a Novell 4.11 server and I received this message opening another file before we upgraded to Office 2000. MS said it would be fixed with the new version and I ran the fixes on theNovell workstation that is effected. (instructions from Novell to correct problem) My question is, how can I recover this file if I can't open it up at all in Excel 2000?

11 replies

by dmiles

File cannot be acessed-occurs when you save or open a file and the path to the file (including the filename) exceeds 218 characters.
If you attempt to save a file and the path exceeds 255 characters,you will see the following
The file could not beaccessed
Solution One-Rename the file that it has a shorter name
Solution Two-Rename one or more folders that contain the file so that they have shorter names
Trying to access read only-problem will occur when the process that Excel uses to save file is interruppted.
Save to a different disk.

by enoble

For this case the path only consisted of 71 characters. I guess this rule that you discussed didn't apply.

by hook

Take a look in the directory that the file resided in and check to see if there is a temp file there. If the temp file exist then delete it and all should be fine. I've experienced this problem also when word or excel crashes and leave the temp file behind. Hope all works out.

by glenn from iowa

I saw this problem when we switched servers (from Novell to NT). Check the user's permissions on that location to make sure they are not read-only. Check if you can open it using Supervisor-equivalent account. If you can, it is a permissions issue.

by enoble

I couldn't open the file using our Admin user, I tried that already. I think the file is corrupted.

by purple713

If you have a machine with Office 97, try opening it with that. I have ran into this problem a few times. The only way I was able to open them was through an older version of Office.

Hope this works.

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