When editing in Office via WSS, the checkout status in Office isn't aligned with the lock status on the Alfresco server

[utopian]

I’ve installed Alfresco Community v4.2e on Ubuntu 12. I used the text based wizard style installer (the .bin) so the server configuration worked just fine out of the box.

I don’t yet have an SSL cert for this server, as I’m currently just evaluating Alfresco.  To support Office on my Windows PC, I’ve edited the appropriate registry key to allow Basic Authentication over unencrypted connections, as per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2123563 I’ve also added my site to Internet Explorer’s list of trusted sites.  For some reason clicking Edit Online won’t launch Word 2007, on my Windows 7 PC. But if I start off with Word open, I can click on “Edit Online” in Alfresco Share, and the document will open for editing. On the Share site, the file is shown as locked for editing. In Word, the document definitely knows it is a “server document.” If I click the Office button, and open the Server menu, I see View Version History, which works just fine. So far so good.

What I’m confused about is that document is listed in Word as checked in. That is, even though I’m clearly editing a server document, the “Check Out” option is <i>enabled.</i> That is, Word sees the file as checked in.

If I ignore that oddity, I can edit the document, save it, etc, and the changes are reflected up on the server.  When I close the file, it shows on the server as unlocked. So the functionality is fine, if I ignore the Check Out option. But I know my users will find this very confusing.

So … any clues why the checkout status in Office 2007 isn’t aligned with the lock status in Alfresco?

[utopian]

In SharePoint, I can open a file in read-only mode and then later check the file out from within Office. I'm not sure if that is possible in Alfresco. This isn't a show-stopper, but it makes we wonder if there are configuration settings I'm missing, or if there is something else I should understand about how Alfresco uses the WSS protocol differently from SharePoint.