Commercial vs. Non-commercial functionality in Word 12 (2007)

[knowone]

I'm having an issue with a merge that takes place between Word and another
application. The merge works fine with this application & Word 2000, 2002,
2003 and some versions of Word 2007. The merge will not work with Word 2007
in Office 2007 Home & Student (HSE) or in certain combinations of Windows
Vista and Office 2007 Standard.

The operation consists of using this application to open a Word document
that has field names from an open file in the application. The data from the
fields in the open file populates the Word document when it opens.

When it doesn't work, the application produces an error message saying that
the merge couldn't complete because the window doesn't exist. At this point
the only option is to click OK to close the error message. When this happens,
if you open the Task Mgr Winword will actually be running as a process. And
if you open Word, click View & switch windows, the document is there with the
merged fields.

Setting this merge up involves loading 4 simple macros into the default
(normal.dotm) template. I've converted the Word merge file to a .dotx file to
take Word out of its compatibility mode. I've checked & changed the security
settings for the macros. Keep in mind that this merge works fine with Word 12
Professional.

Other attempted fixes include the following:
Loading all outstanding Windows & Office 2007 service packs & updates.
Adding c:\program files to the "trusted locations" which includes the home
directory of the application that calls the merge.
Adding c:\windows to the "trusted locations".
Adding the Temp folder to "trusted locations".
Comparing and/or changing all default settings from the Student/Home &
Standard versions to match the Professional version.
Setting Macro settings to Disable all with notification.

So, is there a functional difference between Office HSE and Office Pro?
Is this an issue of non-commercial vs. commercial office editions?
Will this ever work in Office HSE?
And how does Vista affect the functionality of these different Office 2007
versions?
Thanks.

 

[Jay Freedman]

This is just a guess, since I have no way of knowing exactly what your other
application is doing.

There is a Windows function (FindWindow,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms633499.aspx) that programs can use
to find a particular application window. That function depends on knowing
the title of the desired window (that is, the text that appears in the title
bar at the top of the window). Probably your application is looking for a
window whose title is the name of the merge document followed by a space
character and the string "- Microsoft Word".

At least in the case of HSE, the title also includes the "for noncommercial
use" phrase, and that is probably causing the Windows function to respond
that the desired window doesn't exist. I don't know what you'd see in
"certain combinations of Windows Vista and Office 2007 Standard", but it may
be a similar problem of unexpected text in the window title.

I doubt that there's any difference in functionality among the Word versions
that has any bearing on this problem. As you noted, the merge actually is
performed.

The solution will depend on the application being modified to take these
variations in the window title into account. If it can't find the window by
looking for the most usual title, it then needs to look for the other
possible ones.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[knowone]

OK. Thanks for the info.
An additional question regarding the various combinations of Word 12 & Vista
is "Is an installation of Office 2007 on Vista Home (whateverversion)
considered to be noncommercial and therefore puts "noncommercial" into the
window title?"

 

[JoAnn Paules]

No, the Home and Student Edition is what does it.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies"