Excel or Sharepoint forces to open xlsm file in edit mode; read-only mode is unavailable or ignored

Question

Hello,

The xlsm file is located on the Sharepoint drive.

Using Excel 2013, users could open this file for editing or read-only. In the case of read-only mode, we used the "/r" switch by running excel.exe.

After updating Office to Office16 (LTSC), Excel is unable to open a .xlsm file in read-only mode. The "/r" switch does not work, the "Read-only" function from the context menu does not work, and the Always Open Read-Only function does not work too. Setting the "read-only" attribute for this file also does not work. It appears that Excel is somehow forced to open the file in editing mode, because when opening the file, the "[Read Only]" label appears but disappears within a second or two.

If I move the same file to a drive other than Sharepoint, Excel is able to open in read-only mode, just like Excel 2013.

I'm asking for advice on how to solve this problem so that I can open the xlsm file in read-only mode.

Best regards,
Karol

Answer 1

From the SharePoint respective, check out will affect the default behavior of open file in the read-only mode.

Go to Library settings -> Versioning settings -> Require Check Out -> Set "Require documents to be checked out before they can be edited?" as "Yes".

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