Now I am getting a "File in Use" error

[JenniferMurphy]

When I got up this morning, my laptop was off. When I went to bed last night, it was running with quite a few programs open: Outlook (2-3 views), Excel (4-5 workbooks), Word (3-4 documents), Firefox (5-6 windows), File Explorer (4-5 windows), and one or two other programs.

Firefox was able to restore everything. Outlook seems to have recovered. Word seems to have recovered.

Excel did its usual crappy recovery where it shows me 1-3 versions of each workbook. I then have to try to figure out how to sort it all out manually. But today it has a new annoying twist. If I try to open any of the "recovered" workbooks, I get this error pop-up.

I did a little research and found this page:

Redirecting

answers.microsoft.com

It refers to this page:

"The document is locked for editing by another user" error message when you try to open a document in Word - Microsoft Support

Explains that you receive an error message when you open a Word document. This issue may occur if Word did not quit correctly, or if another instance of Word has opened the document. You may have to end the Winword.exe process to resolve the issue.

support.microsoft.com

It has a detailed step-by-step process for clearing this problem. Has anyone tried this? Is it safe? Does it work? Is there something better?

Thanks

I previously started this related thread, but thought this should be a new one:

What is causing Excel 365 to crash so often?

I am literally getting to hate M$FT. Since upgrading to Office 365 and Windows 11, several office apps will hang/freeze or crash more or less often. Excel is the worst. I just crashed on me. I had 4-5 workbooks open. I had rearranged some columns in a table and then decided I liked it better...

www.mrexcel.com

 

[JenniferMurphy]

Well, if the files are already on your local drive, then restarting your computer should solve the issue.

I guess it's too late to try that. The problem seems to have fixed itself.

 

[JenniferMurphy]

I disabled One Drive on my personal laptop. I know how you feel.

How do I do that?

 

[Jeffrey Mahoney]

In the future, if it persists, rebooting can solve it quicker.

 

[Jeffrey Mahoney]

There is a way to tell Windows which folder you want your Documents folder to be. I think it was a Registry Entry, not sure exactly what I did; so long ago. I created a new folder and redirected.

 

[JenniferMurphy]

There is a way to tell Windows which folder you want your Documents folder to be. I think it was a Registry Entry, not sure exactly what I did; so long ago. I created a new folder and redirected.

Ok. I'll look into that. Thanks

 

[JenniferMurphy]

In the future, if it persists, rebooting can solve it quicker.

I am going to mark this reply as the "solution" so that other readers can see that the immediate problem was resolved. But the underlying problem, which has to do with incompetence or arrogant inconsiderateness or both on the part of M$FT, remains.

ymmv

 

[rlv01]

But the underlying problem, which has to do with incompetence or arrogant inconsiderateness or both on the part of M$FT, remains.

Don't hold your breath waiting for a solution for that one.