File Name, Permissions Lost During Save As on Net Drive (100791)

SUMMARY

If you use Save As to back up an existing file with limited permissions on a network drive, the file can become lost or its special permissions can be changed. This is a result of system operating characteristics and of how some applications save files.

To save a file, some applications (such as Excel and Word) read its contents to a .TMP file, delete the original file, then rename the .TMP file with the original filename. This method ensures that the old version is retained until the update is successful. One consequence of it, however, is that the temporary file (and any new file created from it) inherits the permissions defined for the directory, NOT special permissions defined for the original file.

If the Create permission has not been set for the directory, the application cannot create the temporary file; if the Delete permission has not been set for the directory, the application cannot rename the temporary file because it cannot delete the original file. If this happens, the directory lists the .TMP version and the original version, which is NOT updated.

To avoid these problems, do not define special permissions for files that will be updated using these applications, or define Create and Delete permissions for the directory so that the update can be completed.