I have a client with Terminal Services and Open Office installed on it. Recently they rolled out a new template document with embedded excel files inside of word documents. The users were reporting that the documents were opening read only but what they actually meant was that when they tried to update the embedded spreadsheet. The sheet would open in Calc – readonly under a temp file name. Not what we wanted.
The solution is to tell Open Office how to deal with the Excel component. Under Tools -> OPtions -> Load/Save -> Microsoft Office
Change the options for Excel To Open Office Calc / OpenOffice Calc to Excel to be both selected.
Close out of Open Office
Re-open OO and open the document with the embedded Excel sheet and clicking on the element will edit the item in situ. Click elsewhere on the document to deselect.
Done.