How to make an Excel Workbook have read-only access without C#?

Question

We have an Excel workbook which is similar to an Error Codes database. Unfortunately the application is written in such a way similar to IF (ExceptionCode != AnyPreviousExceptionCode) THEN (Make New Exception Code) which gives the messy problem of new, never before seen exception codes appearing on our monitoring software and requiring a team of analysts to investigate. The point being that this Excel workbook of Error Codes changes alot day to day, especially if a big release comes out.

The problem I have is that there is a team who needs to have this workbook open as they need to consult what error code is what, but there is also one person who needs to update this workbook. Excel of course gives full rights to whoever opens the workbook first and everyone else has to wait, however we have a global team so it's not a simple matter of going over to someone and telling them "please can you share the workbook to me".

Is it possible in Excel to set some users as read-only and other users as write access and have this reflect on the GUI so Excel doesn't make the write access user wait for the read-only user to close the workbook?

Answer 1

In Win7 for Excel 2003, 2007 & 2010 there is a dropdown arrow on the right side of the open button in the open dialog. If you click that you get an option to open the file as Read-Only. Can the non editing users open it like this?
Shift+Right Click on an excel file also gives the option to open as read only.

Sorry man, did not see your question a month ago :)