Hi All,
Thanks in advance for your help.
I by mistake took ownership of all files with no checked in version on a library. Now all the files are checked out to my name. I lost the details whom they were originally checked out to. All the files were checked out to different users. How can I restore their check out to their previous values prior to myself taking ownership.
I need to restore it back to their names whom they were originally checked out.
Please help before being caught to client.
Thanks,
Vignesh Natarajan
I know this is tool late. Even now there is no solution for this.
The issue is irreversible:
- You cannot revert the action
- Cannot check in without informing your client
- Cannot discard check out
Only choice is:
- You already took the ownership, so inform your client & check in the documents(Either UI or Code-possible as they are checked out to you)
- At this point, you are last ‘modified by’ user(Editor) where as the owner of the document is ‘created by’ user(Author)
- Once you checked in the documents(as in Step-1), update the ‘Modified By’ user to the ‘Created By’ user
- Better not to touch the ‘Modified’ time. Because, we never know how long the owner kept making changes to the files after uploading
As per my assumption, I am not able to see any solution to restore the ownership back to the users whom they were really checked out to . To get previous “Checked Out To” version, document needs to be check-in once. So based on version history, you can restore it. But in your case, there is no previous version exist to perform discard checkout. Still we can do research to find a way.
Microsoft has to provide discard ownership action same like discard checkout (just kidding) 🙂
Ya hemant, i know that.. And I did that too. And also my problem is that only.. I took the ownership and all are checked out to me.. can i restore the ownership back to the users whom they were really checked out to…
I guess if user do not provide metadata field values when uploading documents, then those files will be in check-out mode and available inside Library Settings->Manage files which have no checked in version option for administrator. now you have taken ownership from Manage files which have no checked in version option. So all files are check-out by you, But still last modified by properties contains previously checkout user value. But it’s not possible to perform discard checkout because there is no any previous version exist.Â
Microsoft also providing error message like: You cannot discard check out because there is no checked in version of the document
Hope it would be helpful.
Use this PowerShell script to undo the checkout.
http://www.blog4sharepoint.com/force-checkin-file-powershell
