Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure that you back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows registry

Symptoms

When you try to save your workbook, you receive the following error message:

Microsoft Excel cannot access the file 'Network path'. You may receive this error message for the following reasons:

  • The file name or path does not exist.

  • The file that you are trying to open is being used by another program. Close the document in the other program, and try again.

  • The name of the workbook that you are trying to save is the same as the name of another document that is read-only. Try saving the workbook with a different name.

In this message, Network path is the network location where you are trying to save your file. When you try to save your file to another location, you receive the following error message:

Document not saved

Cause

This problem may occur if the following conditions are true:

  • You are saving your file to a network drive.

  • The connection to the network drive has been lost.

  • Your workbook contains any of the following items:

    • PivotTables

    • Visual Basic for Applications modules

    • Embedded objects (such as clip art)

Workaround

To prevent this problem from occurring, you can add theNetworkResiliency andPivotTableNetworkResiliency subkeys to the registry. To do this, follow these steps. Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.

  2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

  3. In the left pane, expand the following items in the order that they appear, as appropriate for the version of Excel that you are running. Microsoft Excel 2002

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Office 10.0 ExcelMicrosoft Office Excel 2003

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Office 11.0 ExcelMicrosoft Office Excel 2007

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Office 12.0 Excel

  4. In the left pane, click the Options folder.

  5. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

  6. Type NetworkResiliency, and then press ENTER.

  7. Double-click the NetworkResiliency icon.

  8. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

  9. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

  10. Type PivotTableNetworkResiliency, and then press ENTER.

  11. Double-click the PivotTableNetworkResiliency icon.

  12. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

These changes take effect the next time that you start Excel. For both registry keys, setting the key to 0 turns the setting off and 1 turns the setting on. The only difference between the two registry keys is that the default value when the registry keys are not present are On for VBA and OLE, and Off for PivotTable Cache.

More Information

This functionality was introduced in Microsoft Excel 2000 as a single registry key. Starting with Excel 2002, the network resiliency feature is subdivided into two categories, to permit better control and to additionally make sure that you can recover from the loss of network connectivity. The two subdivisions are as follows:

  • Resiliency for VBA objects and OLE objects

  • Resiliency for Microsoft PivotTable caches

By default, the resiliency for VBA and OLE is set to On and the resiliency for PivotTable caches is set to Off. The PivotTable cache is off because you can save a pivot table even when the cache is unavailable. A PivotTable does not produce the threat of causing a file not to save when network connectivity is lost. The network resiliency settings have no user interface. They are controlled by registry entries, and are configurable only by manually editing the registry or by policy.

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