XL2000: Changes Are Not Saved to HTTP or FTP Web Server

When you open a file located on a Web server and save the workbook, your changes are not saved, and you do not receive an error message.

This problem occurs when you do the following:

• You open a workbook as read-only, from a Web server using HTTP or FTP.
  
  -and-
• You save the workbook using a Visual Basic macro.

Excel actually saves your changes, but to a different folder. To determine this folder, click Options on the Tools menu. Click the General tab and note the Default file location. The workbook you saved will be in this folder instead of the folder on the HTTP or FTP Web server where you opened the read-only file.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

You can open workbooks that are stored on HTTP or FTP sites on either your intranet or the World Wide Web. To do this, type the address of the file you want to open, in the File name box of the Open dialog box.

For example, type http://myserver/myfile.xls to open the workbook myfile.xls in Excel. If you browse to a Web server, right-click a file, and click Open as Read-Only, then when you save the file, you will receive the following error message:
However, if you save the same read-only workbook using a Visual Basic macro, no error message will appear and the workbook will appear to save. However, when you close and reopen the same workbook from the Web server, the changes do not appear to have been saved. To open the workbook containing the new changes, open the workbook from the location specified in the Default file location of the Options dialog box.