Datatype dropdown behaving very strange

[Michiel van Oosterhout]

Hello,

I am running a localized Visio Professional 2003 (dutch version) and the
dropdown for column datatype has three entries in dutch. The entries are
datatime, money and text, and when I select any of these the actual value
for datatype becomes char(n) where n is a very large negative number which
is always the same during the Visio session, but when you exit Visio and
start again, it's a different number. Right now it's char(-720371529)

I have tried repairing the installation, I have removed and reinstalled
Visio, I have run Office Update, but the problem remains.

Does anyone know what is causing this?

-M

 

[Michiel van Oosterhout]

Ok, I have done some more research. I used the installer to uninstall the
database modeling plugin. Then I ran SysInternals filemonitor while I
reinstalled the database modeling plugin. Turns out there's some new files
written to the installation directory, in my case it all ends up in:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Visio11\1043

1043 is the locale id for my country (The Netherlands), 1033 would be United
States etc. The files the installer creates are these:

MERES.DLL - Languagepack for Visio-databasemodellengine
DBENGR.VSL - No description

as well as 3 database drawing templates and 4 stencils.

Looking at the descriptions of the first two files, I think MERES.DLL is the
file that's causing the bad behaviour. I have dug up this file on the
original Visio CD and copied it over to the installation folder. The problem
remains.

That's as far as I can get on my own.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

-Michiel