Editing Word and Excel Files

I came across some interesting information in researching an issue for a client yesterday.  When you edit a file in Word or Excel (and one would assume, other Microsoft applications), the application creates a temporary file to do the edits in.  This protects the original document while you’re working on it.  When you want to save your changes, the application deletes the original file and renames the temporary file to the name of the original.  There are two implications of this I’d like to point out:

• To edit a Word or Excel file, a user needs delete privileges in the directory the file resides in.
• If you’ve set up custom privileges on an individual Word or Excel file, these privileges are lost as soon as the file is changed and saved.  When the temporary file is created, it inherits the permissions set on the parent folder.  When you save your edits, the temporary file – with the new set of permissions – replaces the original.