[Samba] WinXX file locking on mouse over

[Alex Moen]

Hi everyone,

We have found a wierd feature/bug while using Samba 2.2.4. We have gotten it
properly set up as a PDC, and have been happily using it in production for
about a month now, with very good results. It has replaced our aging WinNT
server with much more performance and no problems, other than one
inconvenience:
When a Windows user running MS Office 2k (this is all we have tested with at
this point) browses the file list looking for a file to open and mouses over
the file (no clicking needed), the software actually opens the file with a
read-only lock to gather the file information such as creator, last
modified, etc. I gathered this behavior by repeatedly using smbstatus and
using a helper to mouse over and open files for me. If the user immediately
clicks on the file, they will experience an MS Office error that states that
the file is open by the user (themself). For instance, if user John mouses
over and double-clicks the file, he will get the error that the file is
locked for editing by John, and that he can open the file read-only or be
informed of when the file is unlocked, or cancel. Now, if the user waits a
small amount of time, enough to allowing the little yellow information box
to come up, the file will open readily when double clicked. What seems to be
happening is that the file lock is (possibly) staying on longer than is
needed, causing this inconvenience and error condition.

Is there a tweak that can be used to shorten the life of a file lock? Or,
can the lock be changed to a read-write file lock instead of a read-only? Or
is this just an MS thing? My guess is the latter, but we never seemed to
experience this with the NT server, so I thought I'd take a chance here...

TIA!

Alex