Office 2008 and 2011 cannot save or create this file

Upon updating the operating system to OS X 10.6.6, I've found that saving office documents throws up a lot of error messages. It has to be noted that this is only happening for staff logging in through Active Directory. These are the error messages that are coming up:

Word cannot save or create this file. The disk may be full or write-protected.

Word cannot save this document due to a naming or permissions error

The "Word cannot save or create this file" error appeared only for staff saving docx files on an old Server 2000 share.

It is my understanding that the other error ("Word cannot save this document") is cause when saving a .doc file when the .TemporaryItems folder stored in the root directory of the home drive either isn't there or does not have the right permissions. I found this forum which talked a little of the problem

After some searching around I found this very informative webpage on saving issues with Word and other Office applications.

With help from the ICT Technicians we've deduced it is a problem with the staff having home drives on a Windows Server 2000 share, as the students do not have this problem with their home drives on a Windows Server 2003 share.

We hence tried moving a home directory to a Windows Server 2008 share. This fixed the problem of saving .docx files, but we had the .doc error "Word cannot save this document due to a naming or permissions error". I'm assuming this is caused by the .TemporaryItems folder issues, but this needs testing.

Another thing to test was the operating system, as it is suggested that the problem is caused by Apple. It did appear to work very well on OS X 10.6.8, Office 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 share.

We did test this quite extensively, even trying the new Office 2011, which still showed up with error messages.

We now have a few options:

1. Move staff home folders to a Windows Server 2003/2008 share
2. Change the OS X active directory login settings to "Force Local Home", and get a script which automounts their home as a networked volume on login.

The first option is out of my hands but I have started the ball rolling. The second option would mean the users would have to change their habbits, and change always comes with friction. My prefered option is No.1.

Office 2008 - Word file "is being used by another user" Error

One of the members of staff constantly gets the error message:

Some file is being used by "another user". Would you like to make a copy

It was quite a frustrating problem because you could open the Word .doc file in Pages, save it as another .doc file and then open it back up in Word. Of course the problem might pop up again with this new file.

It took about 25 mins to figure it out, thanks to the help of this forum. At the top I was reminded that there needs to be a ".TemporaryItems folder", in the folder which contains the Users home drives. I did this quite a few years ago.

Further down it also mentions Spotlight causing the issue. Simply make sure your Home Drive is in the "Privacy" section of Spotlight Preferences. Because I didn't want to log the user off, I also stopped the process as well called "Quick Look Helper". Worked a charm.

Of course I don't as yet know if you need to do this per user or per machine. I shall update this post when I find out.

In conclusion, I would also like to say that this is just a work around. You should not have to turn off Spotlight as it has a lot of good functions. I should think this is a problem with Microsoft Office 2008. I would also recommend Microsoft to make more accurate error messages. i.e. Your file is being used by another process. This process is: Spotlight. This would help solve problems a lot quicker and more efficiently.