On the File menu, click Exit Task Manager. Repeat steps d and e for each occurrence of Winword.exe. If you receive a message that states that the program is not responding, click End Now. In the Task Manager Warning dialog box, click Yes. Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to open the Windows Security dialog box.Ĭlick Task Manager, and then click the Processes tab.Ĭlick Winword.exe, and then click End Process. Save all your work, and then quit all programs. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps. NOTE: Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If it is not in use, quit all instances of Word, and then remove the owner file. If the document is in use, open the document as read-only. To resolve this issue, first confirm that another user on the network does not have the document open. The document is shared over a network, and another user has it open.

Word previously quit improperly and, therefore, did not delete the owner file.Ī second instance of Word is running in the background with the document already open. This may occur if one or more of the following conditions are true: This behavior may occur if Word determines that the owner file for the document already exists. To open a read-only copy of his document, click.įile name is the name of the document that you tried to open. Failing that, you'll need to re-load theĭocument from your last known good backup.File name is locked for editing by another user. Of course, you'll need to find a PC you can actually open the document on for this to work. Template (headers & footers may need to be copied separately), closing the old document and saving the new one over it. Corrupt documents can often be 'repaired' by inserting a new, empty, paragraph at the very end, copying everything except that new paragraph to a new document based on the same

If that didn't work, it's possible the document has acquired some of corruption. To re-start Word then disable any non-MS addins, progressively re-enabling them until you find the culprit, which you will then need to uninstall (and possibly reinstall). Does Word now open & process the document correctly? If so, you probably have a faulty third-party addin that's causing the problem.

hold down the Ctrl key while starting Word). If that didn't work, try starting Word in safe mode (i.e. Does Word now open & process the document correctly? If so, problem solved. You can do this by repairing the Office installation (via Start > Windows Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features > Microsoft Office (version) > Change > First off, try to eliminate Word itself as a likely source of the error.

My word document is locked