Better yet, I stopped getting the "File in use by 'another user'" error. Once I changed it from 2003 to 2010, multiple instances of WINWORD.EXE stopped showing up and I was able to open all documents under one instance. Finally, I had previously read in other threads on the subject of "File in use by 'another user'" error that this was a problem in Word 2003.Īfter reading this thread I started playing around with Word Options and found that if you go into "Advanced" under Options and go all the way to the bottom and you will see "Lay out this document as if created in:" For some reason, my default layout I came to the conclusion (and maybe I was wrong as I have such limited knowledge) that every time a new process of WINWORD.EXE was started, it would be considered 'another user' and thats why it would lock the document if I tried to open anĪlready opened file. Once I came across this article I realized that every time I opened a new document a new instance of WINWORD.EXE would This was rediculously annoying since prior versions of Word would just bring the already opened file to the forefront of the desktop. This would cause a new instance of Word 2010 to open and I would get the "File in use by 'another user'" (me) error. I first started noticing a problem because my job calls for me to have several documents opened at once on my computer and we had all just updated from 2007 to 2010.Įvery once in a while I would go back to the folder and accidentally click on a document that was already opened. I am by far no expert on Word but I did something that may have solved the problem. Is do embed into the open document the files you are dropping.). (Do not drag-and-drop into a window that has an open document, or the default action This seems to force a single instance to be used. One workaround that seems to work is, you open an instance of Word (with * noĪctive document open*), then select the documents you want to open, and drag-and-drop into the Word window. Even if this speeds up launching open a batch of documents, I have seen more problems than benefits. If this was a design decision (as commented in an earlier posting above), it was a bad one IMHO. Keep the version of the latest document (process) I close, and I might lose any customization I did when running of of the various instances. The same thing applies to changes to the Normal template - it will always One side-effect of multiple instances opened is that if I try to repeat the last command (Ctrl-Y) in another document, it will not work - because it is a separate instance (process).
I also have the same behaviour in my installation (Win7 32 bit, Office 2010, all patches applied), when I select and click to open multiple files to which I want to do a series of similar, systematic changes in a row. Also, all Word and Office updates have been installed on the machine. PS - The templates contain no code, and no add-ins are loaded at the time that I perform these steps. docx files in my tests).Ĥ. Four instances of WINWORD.EXE appear in the Task Manager (one of them then goes away, leaving only three instances running, but I think that's beside the point).Ĭould someone shed light on why this is happening with Word 2010 and if there's anything that can be done to make it "behave" and open only one instance? Select a group of files (I am selecting 4. Go to a folder containing a set of word documents or templates (all are in either. Word is not running yet, and the Task Manager dialog is open with the processes sorted in reverse alpha order so that WinWord.exe will appear at the top.ġ.
Note: When performing these steps, I am on a 32 bit Windows 7 machine. I am seeing an odd behavior with Word 2010 (32 bit) that I could not replicate in earlier versions of Word.