All files act as read-only!

I've upgraded to Office 2003 both at home and at work and in both places all
the files on my portable drive only open as read-only. These files are NOT
set as read-only on their properties & I'm listed as the creator for
practically all. The portable drive has been in use for over a year with no
problems.
At work I'm using XP Pro; at home, it's a new laptop with Vista. Changing
my account to have full admin rights in the work computer worked, but that's
only temporary, the account will go back to normal soon enough. At home, I
set up one account as admin, the other as regular user, but NEITHER can open
the files normally.
I tried setting up user rights with full access to both my accounts, but
even with that the files still open as read-only. This is only for Office &
only for 2003. Office 2000 programs all work normally, same as other
programs.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
RT

Don't know if this will help, but I had a similar problem between 2 computers
with Word 2003 and an earlier one, (you didn't mention which app) until I
changed "Protect Document" under TOOLS in 2003 Word. A side pane offered
editing options.
--
BFB


"RT" wrote:

> I've upgraded to Office 2003 both at home and at work and in both places all
> the files on my portable drive only open as read-only. These files are NOT
> set as read-only on their properties & I'm listed as the creator for
> practically all. The portable drive has been in use for over a year with no
> problems.
> At work I'm using XP Pro; at home, it's a new laptop with Vista. Changing
> my account to have full admin rights in the work computer worked, but that's
> only temporary, the account will go back to normal soon enough. At home, I
> set up one account as admin, the other as regular user, but NEITHER can open
> the files normally.
> I tried setting up user rights with full access to both my accounts, but
> even with that the files still open as read-only. This is only for Office &
> only for 2003. Office 2000 programs all work normally, same as other
> programs.
> Any help will be greatly appreciated.
> RT