Enabling Enhanced Lock/Unlock on Box Drive

Beginning with v2.21, Box Drive supports the ability to lock (or) unlock files when user opens (or) closes the document. Admins can enable this feature for their end users to help improve the collaboration experience for Box files when accessed by the user on their desktop.

Background

Box Drive currently provides the option to lock a file to ensure other users are not able to edit the document at the same time. To lock the file, right click it and select the lock option before you open the file. If you don't lock a file, there may be conflicting copies of files created when multiple users try to save document at the same time. See File Version Conflicts for details on how Box resolves conflicts such as these.

Enhanced lock/unlock experience

On Box Drive v2.21 and above, admins can enable the enhanced lock/unlock feature for their users. There are 2 configurations the admins can set - Automatic or Prompted locking.

• Automatic Locking (AutoLockUnlock=1) - The file will automatically be locked/unlocked when the user opens/closes the file.
• Prompted Locking (AutoLockUnlock=0) - When the user opens the file, they will receive a prompt asking if they want to lock the file. When the user closes the file it will automatically be unlocked. 

Enabling the enhanced lock/unlock feature 

Automatic locking option:

1. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value (REG_DWORD) using the Registry Editor tool under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Box\Box called AutoLockUnlock.
2. Set the value of AutoLockUnlock to 1.
3. Restart Box Drive.

Prompted locking option:

1. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value (REG_DWORD) using the Registry Editor tool under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Box\Box called AutoLockUnlock.
2. Set the value of AutoLockUnlock to 0.
3. Restart Box Drive.
4.  

Disabling the enhanced lock/unlock feature

1. Delete the AutoLockUnlock registry value from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Box\Box.
2. Restart Box Drive.

Known limitations

• Drive will not be able to detect that file opens and closes when the Office application is opened with admin privileges. This is a system limitation without a workaround.
• Users who have enabled Preview pane on Windows File Explorer will not receive the unlock prompt if Explorer is trying to fetch the preview for the file (when the file is selected when File Explorer is in focus).

User Experience

The below table lists the experiences for the different configurations for enhanced lock/unlock when accessing files on the Box Drive folder: