I haven't figured out the common denominator yet, but randomly about once every 1-2 weeks when I close a file (it's never the same file) and quit PowerPoint, I will have a coworker ask me to get out of the file. The problem is, I am out of the file. I've discovered that even though PowerPoint is not open on my computer, when I am told I'm in a file if I open my Task Manager and go to the Process tab sure enough it shows POWERPNT.EXE running in the background. If I force it to quit, then it frees up the file.



Does anyone know why it does this? More importantly, does anyone know how to prevent it? It really annoying to never know if a file is going to be inaccessible to a coworker and I'm not about to start opening Task Manager every time I want to close a PowerPoint file.

I should also note that I am talking about .ppt files specifically. I haven't noticed it happen with any other type of PowerPoint files... yet.