You receive a "This modification is not allowed because the document is locked" error message when you modify a document in Word 2003 (818852)

SYMPTOMS

When you try to make changes in a Word 2003 document, you receive the following message:This modification is not allowed because the document is locked.When you try to find a region in a protected Word 2003 document that you can edit (for example, you click Find Next Region I Can Edit on the Protect Document task pane), you receive the following message:Word has finished searching the document.

CAUSE

This behavior may occur if the document is protected with an editing restriction of No changes (Read only) or Comments.

Word 2003 is not a fully-compliant Rights Management (RM) program. For more information about Microsoft Rights Management, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/news/bulletins/wrm.mspx

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, do one of the following:

On the Insert menu, click Comments.

Note If you insert your comments in this document, you can save your changes and then return the document to the sender with your comments.

-or-
On the Protect Document task pane, click Stop Protection.

Note If the Unprotect Document dialog box appears for you to type a password, the document is password-protected and you cannot stop the protection on this document unless you know the password.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about editing restrictions, click Microsoft Word Help on the Help menu, type editing restrictions in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.