Microsoft have set some privacy settings in their docs because if it is enable anyone can able to re-edit the docs without the author permission which will cause security loop holes and can damage original docs.

When did they implement this privacy settings, because I did not have this issue last week.

Thanks for responding, John

When you download a file to open it in an external application for editing then the file get stored in the TEMP folder. If you would save the file under the same name in the TEMP folder then the file could be lost as there is no guarantee about keeping files stored in the TEMP folder and thus the file is stored with a read-only attribute to protect users against losing changes to the file. You need to use "Save as" and save the file in a different location to prevent data loss.

Not sure if I am replying to this correctly or not but ... Again, this is a new scenario, as recently as last week I did not have this issue.

One more note / piece of information. This does not happen with documents that I get as email attachments... they also open in the temp folder so the thought process behind the replies above do not hold up.

Also, it does not happen when opening network files using MS IE.