Similar to the issue described here, I have a customer whose users see the "Check Out" button when opening Word 2007 documents directly from a document library with the checkin/out enabled.
Although the user only has Visitor (Read-only) permissions for the file, the Check Out button still shows up in the "Server Document" when they open the .docx in the Word 2007 client.
Security is still enforced when the user attempts to check out the file (generating a popup with the following error: "Cannot perform this operation. The file has been deleted or someone else has it checked out."). This is, however, an annoyance and addition to their gulp end user training!
Anyone have any ideas on how to hide the Check Out button in this scenario?
In addition, here is another similar unresolved thread on the MSDN forums: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3354381&SiteID=1&mode=1 (offline)