Mail Merge can't find data source in Office XP...but it could in 2000!

[mj.redfox.mj]

Hi,

I'm trying to find a solution to a problem a colleague of mine is
having. He has a database which uses VB to generate an Excel
spreadsheet and save it onto a network drive, then to mail merge this
into an existing Word Document stored elsewhere on the same network.
The db is accessed by users via Citrix (Terminal Services), and until
recently when this was all done via Office 2000 it all worked fine.

However, since a recent upgrade to Office XP SP2 on the Citrix server
(just to clarify NOT SP3, as we are aware of quite specific issues with
this version concerning mail merges!), a problem has occurred. Upon the
Word doc opening, the mail merge toolbar functions are greyed out as
though Word cannot find the data source. However, if the user manually
selects the data source, the Document and mail merge then work fine.
However, the next time a Citrix session is launched, the data source
again is not automatically found.

We have tried an experiment, and if the Word Doc is modified to point
to an Excel data source in the same drive and folder as itself, then
the whole thing is opened via Citrix, this time it works fine.

The network drive that the Excel spreadsheet is usually saved to is
basically the personal folder for the current Citrix user...my initial
thought is that this must surely be some sort of permissions issue with
that particular drive seeing as the mail merge does work for local
versions of the same spreadsheet, but the thing that's puzzling me is
that it's the upgrde from Office 2000 to XP that seems to have caused
the problem, and permissions haven't changed....could anyone more
familiar with Office XP Mail Merges suggest anything I may have
overlooked here?

Thanks, Mark

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I'd have a good root through the Microsoft KB at
http://support.microsoft.com

A couple of possibilities:

"Opening This Will Run the Following SQL Command" Message When You Open a
Word Document - 825765

http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=825765

although I think your experiments probably rule that out.

"You cannot find your data source when you open a mail merge main document
in Word 2002 on a Windows Server 2003-based computer"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834699

Personally, I don't see why that would be confined to Windows 2003 servers
as it seems to be more to do with the network locations trusted by IE which
might affect any recent Windows/IE combination.

other than that, there were (and still are) quite a lot of problems to do
with filtering and sorting Excel data sources in Word mailmerge in Office
2002 - in some cases I suspect there may be no solution other than to use
code to connect to the data source, and (if necessary) change the connection
method.

Peter Jamieson

 

[mj.redfox.mj]

Thanks Peter. You've confirmed our thoughts, that this must be a 2002
specific problem. As I said, I already know about various problems
regarding Mail Merges using SQL statements that occur specifically in
2002 SP3, so it's perhaps likely that SP2 would also have a few issues
in this area. We're going to try publishing the database suite to a
test Citrix server using Office 2003 instead to see if this will
provide a quick fix for the developer, who is currently tearing his
hair out! Appreciate your help.

 

[mj.redfox.mj]

After speaking to the user again, it appears it was only Office 97 they
had success with, not 2000 as they first though. (Bangs head on wall)

So it's probably never worked beyond that version. I still have the
strange situation of the mail merge working with the spreadsheet in the
'local' folder to the Word Doc, but not in the user's network folder,
so there is still an issue there I need to solve, but it appears that
the version of Office is not the problem.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

(Bangs head on wall)

Ouch!

I would still suspect permissions - I can't help you much there but I do
know that there may be more than one relevant permission, e.g.
- on the folder
- on the share (if any)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/277644/en-us

might also be relevant.

Peter Jamieson