Big offline files (Office)

It seems we have a problem with big offline files; i.e. opening a big Excel
file (35MB). In our environment the notebook users have their homefolder
available offline. Now when being connected to the network in the office,
it's not a problem to work with these big files. But when being offline (with
no network connection at all) the trouble starts. When trying to save the
file Excel just freezes. It usually might work at the first attempt. But when
trying a second time it's not working anymore. Excel itself shows the save
process is almost finished and in the concerned folder you can see the
temporary file almost created (nearly the same size as the original file).
Excel itself can't be closed anymore, even not with task manager. Ususally
the notebook needs to be powered of without being able to shutdown the PC.
If you first copy the file to somewhere else to the C-drive it's working.
But then the modified file needs to be copied back to the offline folder
manually by the user.
Our environment is the following: Windows 2000 SP4 for the file server and
Windows XP SP2 and Offce XP SP3 for the clients.

Michael,

When you right-click the modified excel file & select Properties > General,
is the file a 'Read-only'? If so, change to 'Archive' , click OK then copy
it back.

Drew

"MichaelG" <MichaelG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:EFC27637-9834-4D69-99DA-02E18E40A44D@microsoft.com...
> It seems we have a problem with big offline files; i.e. opening a big
> Excel
> file (35MB). In our environment the notebook users have their homefolder
> available offline. Now when being connected to the network in the office,
> it's not a problem to work with these big files. But when being offline
> (with
> no network connection at all) the trouble starts. When trying to save the
> file Excel just freezes. It usually might work at the first attempt. But
> when
> trying a second time it's not working anymore. Excel itself shows the save
> process is almost finished and in the concerned folder you can see the
> temporary file almost created (nearly the same size as the original file).
> Excel itself can't be closed anymore, even not with task manager. Ususally
> the notebook needs to be powered of without being able to shutdown the PC.
> If you first copy the file to somewhere else to the C-drive it's working.
> But then the modified file needs to be copied back to the offline folder
> manually by the user.
> Our environment is the following: Windows 2000 SP4 for the file server and
> Windows XP SP2 and Offce XP SP3 for the clients.

Unfortunately this is not the case. The file is not a Read-only. It is set to
Archive. I just tried it once again. I opened the file and saved it several
times. After some attempts it stopped working again and Excel was frozzen.
Changing to Explorer I again could see the temporary file almost being
created (nearly the size of the original file). When trying to select this
temporary file also the Explorer was immediately frozzen.

"Drew Tognola" wrote:

> Michael,
>
> When you right-click the modified excel file & select Properties > General,
> is the file a 'Read-only'? If so, change to 'Archive' , click OK then copy
> it back.
>
> Drew
>
> "MichaelG" <MichaelG@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:EFC27637-9834-4D69-99DA-02E18E40A44D@microsoft.com...
> > It seems we have a problem with big offline files; i.e. opening a big
> > Excel
> > file (35MB). In our environment the notebook users have their homefolder
> > available offline. Now when being connected to the network in the office,
> > it's not a problem to work with these big files. But when being offline
> > (with
> > no network connection at all) the trouble starts. When trying to save the
> > file Excel just freezes. It usually might work at the first attempt. But
> > when
> > trying a second time it's not working anymore. Excel itself shows the save
> > process is almost finished and in the concerned folder you can see the
> > temporary file almost created (nearly the same size as the original file).
> > Excel itself can't be closed anymore, even not with task manager. Ususally
> > the notebook needs to be powered of without being able to shutdown the PC.
> > If you first copy the file to somewhere else to the C-drive it's working.
> > But then the modified file needs to be copied back to the offline folder
> > manually by the user.
> > Our environment is the following: Windows 2000 SP4 for the file server and
> > Windows XP SP2 and Offce XP SP3 for the clients.
>
>
>