As I sat here this morning waiting for the IT man to come to deal with
Hil's PC (hardware issue) I remembered that the files I had on my office
PC that were refusing to disappear had been edited a few weeks ago on my
laptop, via the wifi (but had been edited many times since on the office
PC). So just out of curiosity I used the laptop to find them on the
drive of the office PC and pressed delete, and it worked!

So presumably the laptop had marked the files as 'open' and only it
could remove that marking. Or is this too simplistic?

The reason I wanted to delete them was that all the text had been copied
to other files, so they were now redundant.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

Bill

In article , Bill Wright
wrote:
As I sat here this morning waiting for the IT man to come to deal with
Hil's PC (hardware issue) I remembered that the files I had on my office
PC that were refusing to disappear had been edited a few weeks ago on
my laptop, via the wifi (but had been edited many times since on the
office PC). So just out of curiosity I used the laptop to find them on
the drive of the office PC and pressed delete, and it worked!

So presumably the laptop had marked the files as 'open' and only it
could remove that marking. Or is this too simplistic?

I don't know how 'doze handles file permissions. But an alternative is that
the laptop account 'took ownership' for some reason.

Slainte,

Jim

--
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On Sunday, December 11th, 2011, at 16:03:35h +0000, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Can't comment beyond that as I have no idea why Bill's files became
'undeletable' without him setting that.

Because they are Word documents and MS Word creates lock files on
documents.

So as indicated in another post, the user who was in the process of
editing the file had the user on the laptop identity, the user on
the desktop identity could not modify the file.

My original post on the matter provided a link to explain all
this but I guess it was either not received or nobody could
be bothered to visit the page and read the details.

http://word.mvps.ORG/faqs/apperrors/lockedfiles.htm

This is a problem which in the past has caused quite a lot
of consternation for users whose files which are stored on a
central server.

If the network went down temporarily, and the lock file indicating
that an edit was still in progress remains and the user become unable
to do anything further with the file.

In article , J G Miller
wrote:
On Sunday, December 11th, 2011, at 16:03:35h +0000, Jim Lesurf wrote:

Can't comment beyond that as I have no idea why Bill's files became
'undeletable' without him setting that.

Because they are Word documents and MS Word creates lock files on
documents.

You'll have to explain that in terms a non-doze-user can follow. :-) Is
the phrase "creates lock files" a slip of the english, or does windows (or
Word) save a 'lock file' that controls access to another file?

So as indicated in another post, the user who was in the process of
editing the file had the user on the laptop identity, the user on the
desktop identity could not modify the file.

In Linux-like terms, does that mean the file had its owner (and group) ID
set to those for the laptop user, not the main machine user (and group)?

My original post on the matter provided a link to explain all this but I
guess it was either not received or nobody could be bothered to visit
the page and read the details.

http://word.mvps.ORG/faqs/apperrors/lockedfiles.htm

That looks more to me like a temporary file created by the 'Word' process
using the 'Word' (or root like?) ID. Is that the case?

I'm asking what may seem odd questions because I don't know that much about
the filing system Windows uses. I just access it from Linux or RO so can
please myself about any file permissions, etc.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Op maandag, 12 december, 2011, om 17:52:54u +0100,
schreef Martin van Nederlands:

http://word.mvps.ORG/faqs/apperrors/lockedfiles.htm

Nah! Somebody here advised us not to open URLs.

The advice was not to click *directly* on the link but to copy
and paste the link to the address bar of the browser.

On Monday, December 12th, 2011, at 16:28:47h +0000, Jim Lesurf asked:

That looks more to me like a temporary file created by the 'Word'
process using the 'Word' (or root like?) ID. Is that the case?

As far as I am aware -- yes -- the temporary file is the "lock file".

I'm asking what may seem odd questions because I don't know that much
about the filing system Windows uses. I just access it from Linux or RO
so can please myself about any file permissions, etc.

Because Linux or RO applications do not check for the presence of
such a "lock file" for Word documents.

GNU/Linux software does use similar sort of lock files on occasion,
eg Debian apt-get and dpkg, because after all, you do not want more
than one invoked process to be trying to change the installed software
"database" at a time.

The most popular lock file on GNU/Linux systems is of course

/tmp/.X0-lock


luser Xorg

Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0
If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
and start again.


Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support
at http://wiki.x.org
for help.

In message , J G Miller
writes
Op maandag, 12 december, 2011, om 17:52:54u +0100,
schreef Martin van Nederlands:

http://word.mvps.ORG/faqs/apperrors/lockedfiles.htm

Nah! Somebody here advised us not to open URLs.

The advice was not to click *directly* on the link but to copy
and paste the link to the address bar of the browser.

If you hover your mouse cursor over a link, you will see what it really
is, revealed on status bar at the bottom of the screen. If it seems to
have no relationship with what it purports to be, treat with great
caution.

I'm using Demon's Turnpike mail/news client, and if I right-click on a
link, a dialogue box opens, and I can select 'Extract URL'. This reveals
all the links in the e-mail/posting.
--
Ian

Jim Lesurf wrote:


You'll have to explain that in terms a non-doze-user can follow.

It's a hell of a problem for you Jim, not using Windows like everybody
else. Must drive you mad. Don't they have it in Scotland?

Bill

In message , Bill Wright
writes
Jim Lesurf wrote:

You'll have to explain that in terms a non-doze-user can follow.

It's a hell of a problem for you Jim, not using Windows like everybody
else. Must drive you mad. Don't they have it in Scotland?

In the 1700s, didn't they introduce a Window Tax in Scotland, and, as a
result, many Scottish stately homes and castles have bricked-up
(stoned-up?) windows? Maybe it still exists, and so penny-pinching
computer users mistakenly think that they can save a few bawbees by
using alternative operating systems?
--
Ian

In article , Tony sayer wrote:
Which strikes me as a very common problem now people either can't or
won't be bothered to learn anything about the S/W package they are using
they expect it to just work and read their minds re what they want it to
do!....

Ordinary mortals relate to *all* technology in this way. They just take it
for granted until it goes wrong or fails to do what they want, and then
they assume that it's somebody else's fault, and that they should be
entitled to "compensation" or somebody to fix it for nothing.

Rod.
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