File Sharing

[ljbohn]

I have several documents in Writer and Calc that I am sharing to either Everyone on the network or just certain users.

When I go to open the documents on a different computer on the network, the documents are opening just fine.

When I try to open them on this computer, but with a different network user, the docs will not open. The initial Open Office screen pops up and then crashes/doesn't open the document. I am able to open the docs if I manually open the program of choice and then choose File...Open. However, when I double click the shared file from the folder, it will not open.

Any suggestions?

P.S. The different User Accounts are a mix of Administrator and Standard Users with and without passwords. None of them work except for the original User that created the document.

[Mark Nelson]

Use Google Docs or some other thing like it that is actually meant for the kind of thing that you are trying to do. I think that AOO is a single person thing for the most part but if another person with more experience than I have would like to correct me I would like to know.

[RoryOF]

I would first try that the remote users were able to open other files in the shared locations. I'd suggest placing there a simple text file and seeing if it will open for all users using the system text editor; that used be Notepad, but I don't know what is current on Win 7/8/10. This will prove that all users have correct access permissions to those shared locations.

[ljbohn]

Yes. I was already successful with notepad. This is OpenOffice exclusively.

[ljbohn]

I would also like to say that this is for collaboration on documents. So read/write is necessary.

I am very familiar with Google and its awesomeness, but the office manager here would like to use Open Office if at all possible.

Thanks for the help!

[Villeroy]

Of course it is possible to share files on a network. But you must not think that this is a cheap replacement for MS Office. Particularly, you must NEVER store your work in foreign file formats.
There is only one occasion when you may store one of your ODF documents as a *.doc copy. This may be necessary when you need to co-edit your document with someone who a) can not install an ODF suite AND b) runs MS Office prior to version 2010. Recent versions of MS Office can handle ODF documents.
Whenever you send documents to a receipient who is not supposed to make any edits to your work, then you send PDF which ensures that your work is displayed true to the original on all computer platforms, including phones.

[ljbohn]

I'm not sure you are all understanding the situation. Let me provide a more explicit example.

1) Using the computer's Admin 'User' account, open 'OpenOffice Writer' and create a new document.
2) File...Save...calling it "Test" and saving it to the desktop.
3) Close the document. Then, right-click on the desktop link.
4) Highlight Share With...then choose Specific People...
5) Add Everyone with a Read/Write permission level.
6) Go to a different computer on the network, navigate to \\computername\Users\User\Desktop.
7) Double-click to open "Test"...this works fine.
8) Go back to the original computer.
9) Log out of the account 'User'.
10) Log into account 'User2', which can be either an Admin or a Standard Account.
11) Navigate to \\computername\Users\User\Desktop from here.
12) Double-click to open "Test"...this does not work.

Does that help to clear up what I am trying to do here?

[Villeroy]

Windows and the platform independent OpenOffice do not share their sharing mechanisms.

[amarob]

Is there a workaround to this issue by any chance?
I have observed the same problem as above, but on windows 10 and open office 4.1.0. It works fine in windows 7. Is windows 10 supported ? my PC automatically installed it ( I think I can go back but for now I am experimenting)

So I am trying to open an .odt/.ods documents by double clicking them. Basically the same problem as described by L Bohn above and it can be reproduced with the same steps. The files can be opened by another PC using that shared location.

I have tried the following
1. checked that no processes are running using task manager.
2. renaming the user profile so a new one gets created
3. disable firewall
4. disabled online updates.
5. I have tried to map a network drive (Z:/) as well. If I try to access the document through the network drive, openoffice reports "z:\<file.odt> does not exist".
6. I tried running as administrator
7. file extensions are good because open office splash screen flashes up
8. file name is nothing special , "Client Redials.odt". it contains a space but I think this is being handled correctly.
9. other documents (notepad, .xlsx) open fine only openoffice docs do not.

I suspect this is a permissions problem but I cannot find a solution and I am out of ideas. Is there any way I can debug the condition without having to rebuild openoffice from scratch? i.e. Are there changes I can make to the .ini file(s) that will then give me some logging information?
Any ideas would be appreciated.

[ke4avb]

I think I am having the same problem here. I wasn't having any problems when I was using Win 7 32bit and XP but now that I upgraded to Win 7 64 bit systems I can no longer access the docs. I open the networked directories but when I try opening the files OO tries but then closes. The directories are shared with full access. Something is just not cooperating. It frustrating to say the least; It got to something we got setup wrong as I never had a problem in past in accessing networked files.

[Villeroy]

Install https://libreoffice.org