Word cannot save files on network share   

Hi,

I've been using Word 97 on my Windows 2000 system to work with documents 
stored in a network share of a Windows 95 machine. For years, I've opened 
doc files on that network share, made changes to them, and then saved them 
back in that share. So far so good... Until today that I decided to update 
my Windows 2000 workstation (via Windows Update) and 34 critical updates 
(mostly security-related patches) were downloaded and installed. No Word 97 
patches were installed, just Windows'. Now, although I still can open all 
Word documents on the network share, I cannot save them anymore. Each time I 
try to save a document on that share, after making changes on it for 
example, Word 97 gives an error stating that "The folder 
\\repository\C\General Files\1 Quotes\2005\file0421 isn't accessible. It may 
be on an unavailable volume, or protected with a password." , no matter 
whether I change the filename or keep it the same. If I map the share to 
drive E: for example, so that \\repository\C becomes E: , the error remains 
the same.

I searched MS Knowledge Base and found article 138057 which addresses this 
*exact* problem. The article regards illegal characters on the 
pathname/filename or network unavailability as responsible for the issue, 
where neither is my case. Also, no changes were made to my Windows 2000 
account, no changes were made to the network configuration or to the Windows 
95 machine that hosts the repository of Word files. The only change, so to 
say, were the 34 updates/patches that were installed on my Windows 2000 
system. That's why I'm focusing on these patches as the source of the 
problem (perhaps something screwed up the way Word 97 interops with Windows 
2000).
I did some tests opening/saving files on the network share from other 
workstations running Windows 98, and everything is OK, which eliminate the 
idea of issues on the machine that hosts the files.

At this point, I've not been able to figure out a workaround for this, and, 
as it seems it's a Word 97 <--> Patched Windows 2000 interop issue, I 
thought someone must have hit this issue before.
Pointers to get this problem fixed are highly appreciated.

Thank you.

Fernando Ronci
E-mail: fernandoronci@hotmail.com

date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 00:10:53 -0300   author:   Fernando Ronci