MS Office file locking on SMB share

I have both Windows and Mac clients accessing the same SMB share. There are file locking issues with Microsoft Office files, eg Excel.
Scenario 1:
1) PC User connects to the share and opens file test.xls. The PC user gets read/write access.
2) Mac user connects to the share and opens file test.xls. The file opens read-only. This is the desired behavior.
Scenario 2 (the problem):
1) Mac user connects to the share and opens file test.xls. The Mac user gets read/write access.
2) PC user connects to the share and tries to access file test.xls. Access fails with the following error: "Cannot access 'test.xls'".
A few details:
The share is on a NAS (network-attached-storage) device, although I can reproduce the same behavior on a windows server or Samba server as well.
The Macs are OSX 10.4 or 10.3 with Office 2004
The PCs are XP SP2 with Office XP Pro
My storage vendor says this is a 'Mac issue'. Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Various Mac OS X (10.4.6)

There are plenty of free ways to view at MS Office, but I don't think there are any to let you edit it. Most free apps are free for a reason (luring people in for purchases/upgrades, or supporting a commercial company as a portal, or as public services) - a dedicated professional app such as this is going to cost you less than 10 dollars.

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Message Edited by rickysuper on 11-27-2009 12:00 AM

MS Office file locking on SMB share

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