The purpose of this article is to help IT desktop support professionals understand the different ways a user can interact with files stored in a SharePoint document library and the implications of each method.

1. Clicking on the document name results in Read-only copy
   
   This is the option that causes the most problems. In this case, the following events happen:
   1. IE downloads the document to the client's Temporary Internet Files location
   2. Client OS uses MIME association to launch the registered application (Word)
   3. Client application opens document from local disk Temporary Internet Files location
   4. Document is Read Only!
   5. Server Document Properties can't be displayed (See 2. Below)
   6. Save location is a rather random file name/location under Temporary Internet Files)
   7. If user tries to 'Save-as', Word has no idea that the document came from SharePoint so what can the user do?

   It gets even worse than this. If the user saves the document locally and then uploads it into the SharePoint library or saves directly back to SharePoint, closes Word and then re-clicks on the document link. IE , depending on its cache settings, may not download the updated document but instead serve up the cached copy to word which will not contain the users' updated document. This is a common cause for the "SharePoint is losing all my document updates" help desk call.
   
   Office 2007 improves this situation by detecting that the document has come from a SharePoint site and allowing the user to switch into Edit mode
   
   Office 2007 also pre-empts the http download with this dialog box
    

2. Using the drop-down menu (preferred method for editing documents)
   
   This cause the following chain of events:
   1. The Edit menu item calls a javascript function that creates an ActiveX object http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms454230.aspx
   2. The ActiveX control launches Word and then automates word to open the document using the Web-DAV protocol http://www.webdav.org
   3. Because Web-DAV was used to open the document, Word knows where to save it back to
   4. After word closes or the browser gets focus, the web page is refreshed to tow the updated document properties

   Because this function is performed by an ActiveX control, IE security settings must allow it. Overzealous locking down of IE security or the SharePoint site being detected as from the Internet Zone will result in this failing or the user being bugged with lots of security warnings. Best bet is to place your SharePoint sites into the Trusted Sites zone.

   There are several versions of this ActiveX control depending on which version of Office is installed. This can cause problems if you have a mixture of versions (e.g. Office 2003 and Outlook 2007 or Office 2003 and SharePoint Designer 2007) which can result in one of the following:

• an error informing the user that they don't have a compatible version of Office installed
• IE shuts down (especially when clicking on the New menu item or a content type from the new drop down)

If you are in this situation then the fix can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929360

Office 2007 (Office Ultimate, Professional Plus or Office Enterprise) understands content types and uses the property panel to link the SharePoint library metadata to document properties

Because the property panel is the InfoPath ActiveX control, it makes a separate SOAP call to the SharePoint server. This is why you will get two login prompts on an Extranet site using NTLM (one for Word to open the file for editing and one for the property panel form).

1. Documents can also be edited from the Explorer view
   
   This also uses the Web-DAV protocol. The url is handled by the Windows XP or Vista Web-DAV Redirector in Windows Explorer which translates the url into a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) of \\server\DavWWWRoot\Site\Library.
   If you have any problems with Explorer View, see http://www.wssdemo.com/redir.aspx?ID=909
   Problems with this method:
   1. Site Administrators and Designers can place files outside of document libraries (still in the sites content database by other users will not be able to browse for them)
   2. No metadata displayed
   3. Documents remain checked out if uploaded or changed
      
2. Users can map a drive letter to the library using explorer view.
   
   Users can cut and paste the document library URL into the path to map to but this will often fail because spaces are converted into %20 and when these are translated into the UNC format they are no longer valid.
   This also has the same disadvantages as #3.
   
3. FrontPage RPC's. Not really an end user option but for a developer or ISV who wants to automate creating/updating documents with full functionality. See http://www.codeplex.com/sharepad for a sample application that uses this method.
4. Record Center Web Service. Again, not an end user thing and only works with Record Center document libraries. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms442541.aspx
   Or install a web service like http://www.codeplex.com/wsuploadservice