I send you this mail not knowing if it should go to PCBUILD or PCSOFT.

        I recently set up a 5 node peer-2-peer network for an Insurance company.
The customer asked me if we can share any files on the network. My reply was
"YES"! The customer then asks me to set up his "Personal Folder" file
(*.pst) to be shared. This would allow his staff to view and edit his
calendar for appointments. I moved the file to it's own directory and marked
the directory shared. Now I built profiles on the other 4 PC's so they can
choose the profile that will access his ".PST" file across the network to
allow them to view/update his calendar. We were able to make it work on all
4 PC's at least once. Then we started to get the error "cannot access
because another process has locked a portion of the file". I went to each of
the machines and closed OUTLOOK on all of them and tried again. I still get
the message above. I then did a "Ctrl" + "Alt" + "Delete" to view the task
list on each machine one at a time. I found on several occassions that one
machine and one machine only would show the"OUTLOOK" task still running even
though Outlook itself wasnt active on the desktop or taskbar. I killed that
task ("END TASK"), and found that we could share the file again. But
invariably we would run into that error message when user 1 would end
Outlook and start the other profile for their own calendar/mail and then a
different user would attempt to access the shared *.PST file across the
network.
        The network seems to be fine since it is allowing printers to be shared,
other directories are being used to hold documents and templates that are
shared. The problem is that this error is now happening every time they try
to access the shared *.PST across the network. We are no longer finding the
"Outlook" task running on any of the machines. I am running low on ideas as
to why we cant share this file, or what on the network could be causing this
problem. The folder is marked shared with full access, the file itself
(*.pst) is not marked read only. And as I stated earlier, it worked for a
short period of time. Any ideas on how to resolve this issue, or what other
items that I should be checking? All ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Greg Anderson
GALA Enterprise
Quality Computer Service & Repair
Phone - 916-684-8647
e-mail - [log in to unmask]

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