How do I prevent Excel from locking files by default?
- by Andrzej Doyle
When I double-click on a CSV file on a network share, the file is opened in Microsoft Excel (which is what I want). However, Excel assumes that I'm going to modify the file, and that everyone else is too, and so puts a lock on it.
In practice I very rarely actually want to modify these files, merely read from them. And if I have the file open in an Excel window in the background, it stops anyone else from opening the same file.
I am aware that I can manually open a file as read-only from the File - Open dialog within Excel. However I almost always open files by double-clicking on them in Explorer (or Outlook, for attachments). Is it possible to change the file association so that the default handler for CSV files is "Excel in read-only mode"? Is there a command-line argument that I can use in the Open With... dialog to achieve this?
Or more bluntly - when I am looking at a CSV file in Windows Explorer, is there an easier way to open it read-only than starting up Excel myself, selecting File - Open, choosing "read only" from the dropdown, manually navigating to the same folder in the hierarchy, and then opening the file?
(I am happy to have to jump through hoops on the rare occasions that I want to modify and save a file.)
