How do I 'unlock' it when it says my document is locked?

I haven't used Excel for a couple days, today I opened it up and tried
creating a spreadsheet, and it wouldn't let me type any text in. I opened
Word, out of curiosity, and it won't let me create a new document in Word
either. The message at the bottom of the screen says, "This modification is
not allowed because the document is locked." What does this mean and how to
take this "lock" off? I've had my new computer for about 2 months and never
registered Microsoft Office, but I've never registered any previous copies
either and never had this problem. Anyone had this happen before?

Sounds like an "Activation" issue.

Office 2002 and 2003 require activation(not registration).........older versions
did not.

After about 50 uses with no activation, Office products will cease to be
functional.

See this KB article for how to fix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316032/en-us


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:55:01 -0700, sdl121 <sdl121@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:

>I haven't used Excel for a couple days, today I opened it up and tried
>creating a spreadsheet, and it wouldn't let me type any text in. I opened
>Word, out of curiosity, and it won't let me create a new document in Word
>either. The message at the bottom of the screen says, "This modification is
>not allowed because the document is locked." What does this mean and how to
>take this "lock" off? I've had my new computer for about 2 months and never
>registered Microsoft Office, but I've never registered any previous copies
>either and never had this problem. Anyone had this happen before?