SharePoint Files Directed to Save Locally Instead of Server

If you’ve run into a situation where a user can open a Word 2003 file on SharePoint Server but is directed to save the file locally, try the following solution. I had a client who ran into this situation and was able to fix using the technique described below.

1. Uninstall the SharePoint support from Office 2007 applications (e.g. Visio).

2. Set the document files (e.g Word, Excel) to not open in the browser as follows. This procedure is for Windows XP Professional.

a) Open Windows Explorer.

b) Go to Tools, Folder Options.

c) Click on File Types tab.

d) Highlight the document extension for the file type, e.g. highlight DOC in the extensions column.

e) Click on Advanced button.

f) Uncheck the box “Browse in same window.”

g) Click OK twice to close all windows.

Make sure you do this for other file types that are causing this problem, e.g. Excel.