Error opening embedded Word objects

[Michael E. SLoan]

I have a customer who received a Word document and an Excel spreadsheet
embedded in a Word document. He can open the spreadsheet but when he tries
to open the embedded Word document he receives the error "The program used to
create this object is word. That program is not installed on your computer.
To edit this object, you must install a program that can open the object."
Has anyone else run into this problem?

The original document is in Word 2007 and the embedded document is also in
Word 2007. A work around is to convert the embedded document into Word 2003
but when multiple (50-100) documents come through it takes too much time and
he must forward these out when he is finished with them. This being said, I
can convert the files to 2003 with no problem but if I try to convert back to
2007 I receive an error stating "Word cannot start the converter mswrd632",
even though I just used the converter. Luckily working the documents in 2003
isn't an issue.

I've read that this can be a problem when Office 2003 SP 3 is installed but
that is not installed. Office 2003 Resource Kit is installed.

The computer in question is:
Dell Optiplex 745
3.25 GB Mem
XP Pro SP2
Office 2007 Pro+ 2007

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

See:

http://blogs.technet.com/wordonenot...r-cannot-load-word-for-windows-6-0-files.aspx

If the Applet for WordPad does not exist, create it and set its value to 1.

Alternatively, Restore your computer to a restore point created about 3
weeks ago before this problem started to crop up.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Michael E. SLoan]

Unfortunately this didn’t solve the problem.

I followed the instructions and unregistered the converter and I still
received the error “The program used to create this object is word. That
program is not installed on your computer. To edit this object, you must
install a program that can open the object.â€

I then put the registry key back (I exported it before deleting it) and then
re-enabled the converted by adding the AllowConversion registry entry but I
still receive the same error.

If I drag and drop the embedded file onto my desktop it creates a scrap file
that does open in word so I’m still foggy as to why it won’t open directly
from the original email attachment.

 

[Michael E. Sloan]

All,

I'm still looking for a solution to this problem (please see original post)
and for now I'm having everyone embed their docs into docs using Word 03.
It's working better than Word 07 but the problem seems to be spreading. Now
I have multiple customers with the same problems on both the Dell Optiplex
and on Trusted Thin Clients (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU from different parts of the
country.

I've played with different converter registry settings on a test machine
(Dell Optiplex) but putting .doc, docx, or .shs into different converter
options but everything remains the same so I'm not convinced that it's a
converter but rather a problem with the application itself.

Removing and re-installing the app would be my last choice due to the
geographical separation of some of the customers.

Any thoughts?

Michael

 

[Terry Farrell]

Uninstall the MS09-073 security update (kb973904)

 

[Michael E. Sloan]

Unfortunately the text converter modification doesn't resolve the problem and
I only receive the "Word cannot start the converter mswrd632" after
troubleshooting the original problem of "The program used to create this
object is word. That program is not installed on your computer. To edit this
object, you must install a program that can open the object." I've been
using the convert as a work around to the original error message. For now
I've been asking people to embed 2003 documents into their 2007 documents
before emailing them and that is working but it's also like trying to herd
cats.

These are the same instructions that were provided in a previous reply and
when I implement them through registry edits the original problem still
exist. KB973904 isn't on the clients.

Any other thoughts? I'm all ears.

 

[psevin]

Are you sure that KB973904 is not on the machine? You have to check
"Show updates" in the Add/Remove program windows.
It shows under "Windows XP - Software Updates" on our computers.

 

[Michael E. Sloan]

Yep, KB973904 is not on the machine. I've checked Add/Remove programs and
looked for the NtUninstall file.

I have a feeling everyone is focusing on the mswrd632 error but not the
original error.

 

[Michael E. Sloan]

I read through Microsofts "Create, change, or delete an OLE object" help file
(http://office.microsoft.com/en-es/powerpoint/HA101991921033.aspx#CannotStartError)
and it stated "If the source program is running, make sure that it doesn't
have any open dialog boxes. Switch to the source program, and close any open
dialog boxes".

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm reading that if I have a 2007 Word document
embedded into another 2007 Word document it may not open because the source
program (Word 2007) is running.

It should be normal to be able to open an embedded document from a document.
Does this sound right to anyone?

Michael

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

No, that is not what it means. However, sometimes when you try and open a
document by clicking on it in say Windows Explorer and there happens to be a
dialog box open in Word, that message will appear. An example of when it
would happen is if you cause the File>Open dialog to appear without actually
opening a file and then you go to Windows Explorer and double click on a
file, that file cannot be opened because the File>Open dialog is open.

That does not however appear to be the situation with which you are faced.

If you want to send me one of the documents that displays the problem, I
will take a look at it and see if I can find out what is causing it.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

 

[david thompson]

I too, have experienced this problem (my embedded excel files in Word documents). Sometimes if I go to a second computer (running the same s/w), the embedded document will open. I usually delete the embedded object and embed it over again to resolve the issue. This has been going on for about a year now and it's appearent to me that no one really knows how to solve the problem. If someone really understands the issue and has a solution (is Micosoft listening), I would be greatly appreciative...