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There are a dozen questions already about Microsoft Office files being locked from editing, but not this exact question. So I hope it won't get marked as a duplicate.

I went into Computer Management this morning and connected to a server so I could close an Open File that was open by "Smith, Bob", a colleague. All good. But then an hour later when I went to open that excel file again, the same user had it locked from editing again ("Smith, Bob"). A user who is on vacation this week. His domain user cannot be accessed from outside the company building. It's not him. And sure enough, it was open again on the Share by his user.

What can cause a file to be reopened by a user who is not in the building? This file isn't accessed by any processes or databases or anything.

WakeDemons3
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    Any number of reasons, but I'd say the most likely one is password sharing between users. I've seen that waaaaaaay more times than I'd like. "I'll be on vacation, here's my login details." – ceejayoz Dec 21 '18 at 18:50
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    Computer Management will also show you the IP address or machine name associated with Bob's network session, so you can check @ceejayoz's idea easily enough. If it does turn out to be Bob's machine you can Remote Desktop into it and then take control of his logon session to see what's going on by using `psexec -s` to run `query user` and `tscon`. – Harry Johnston Dec 21 '18 at 19:07
  • It is indeed his one and only workstation, no one shares passwords here and I would know if his profile was logged on today anyways. Also, his workstation isn;t even signed in right now. I can see it on the login screen, not the switch user. – WakeDemons3 Dec 21 '18 at 19:46
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    Perhaps the user has a scheduled task or other sort of offline automation that's doing it. – mfinni Dec 21 '18 at 20:57
  • Are there any other workbooks that would use that document as a source? Perhaps that file has the credentials cached and when someone else opens the second document it is using "Smith, Bob"'s credentials to open the file. – Enigman Dec 21 '18 at 21:00
  • It's not protected – WakeDemons3 Dec 21 '18 at 21:12
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    The fact that you can see the logon screen doesn't mean the user isn't still logged on. To check, log in as an administrator and look at the Users tab in Task Manager. – Harry Johnston Dec 22 '18 at 08:44

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