Mail merge toolbar unavailable after SP3

[Kirstin]

Our office is using desktops with Office & Windows XP. We have an Access
database that is used to generate a mail merge of insurance renewal notices.
Clicking the Generate Letters button in Access opens the completed mail merge
document for printing.

After applying Office XP SP3, and pressing the same button to Generate
Letters, the mail merge toolbar is now grayed out with only the Main Document
Setup and Open Data Source buttons activate. I found a work around by
clicking Open Data Source and selecting the XLS file that the Access database
is supposed to use. Now the toolbar is activate and I can see all the
records, but we did not have to do this extra step before.

I did some searching on the MS KB and applied the Post-SP3 hotfix package,
but that did not correct the issue. Any ideas?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

This is almost certainly caused by a new security "feature" in SP3 - if you
open your merge document manually in Word, you willprobably see a new dialog
box saying that Word is about to execute some SQL and requesting your
permission to do it. When Word is being automated as in your scenario, what
happens is that the "no" option is assumed, so your document is opened with
no connection to any data source.

The following MS knowledgebase article may help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;825765

 

[Kirstin]

I think you hit nail right on the head Peter. That prompt you metioned does
in fact come up and I'm sure this KB article addresses the issue. I will try
this when I'm back in the office next week.

Thank you for your assistance!

 

[dixie]

Yes, but you should not HAVE to do a registry change on every computer
running mailmerge documents just because you are using SP-3 of Office XP or
Office 2003. Do Microsoft have any idea how many computers in the world are
affected negatively by this "security feature". Surely, they could have
added an option in SP-1 of 2003 to simply turn off the warning. In my area,
there are literally hundreds of computers needing registry changes for this
problem of automation from Access to Word. Surely there is a better fix
than this?

dixie

 

[Graham Mayor]

Microsoft can't win - they are damned if they don't do something about
security and damned if they do.

For most people this is not the issue you seem to imagine. The complaints
about it here have been few.

It is a minor inconvenience to protect the bulk of users from themselves,
and for those for whom the warning is too much of an irritant, they have
documented a workaround as indicated by Peter. It is not that difficult to
create a registry patch from the information provided and either use a
log-in script to implement it or provide the patch for those users upset
about it to install themselves. For Word 2003 users that would be a text
file called (say) FIXSQL.reg containing

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options]
"SQLSecurityCheck"=dword:00000000

Just wait until you install the Windows XP SP2 upgrade, which has a raft of
extra security measures to protect your users.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[dixie]

Graham, how would I go about running that file. Do you have to invoke
regedit, or does it automatically find the file and if so, where should the
file be put?

If this can be done semi automatically, it would solve a lot of problems
where the actual users of the workstations in an organisation are not
computer literate enough to change the registry themselves, so it falls to
one person to get around maybe 50 computers and do it.

dixie

Microsoft can't win - they are damned if they don't do something about
security and damned if they do.

For most people this is not the issue you seem to imagine. The complaints
about it here have been few.

It is a minor inconvenience to protect the bulk of users from themselves,
and for those for whom the warning is too much of an irritant, they have
documented a workaround as indicated by Peter. It is not that difficult to
create a registry patch from the information provided and either use a
log-in script to implement it or provide the patch for those users upset
about it to install themselves. For Word 2003 users that would be a text
file called (say) FIXSQL.reg containing

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options]
"SQLSecurityCheck"=dword:00000000

Just wait until you install the Windows XP SP2 upgrade, which has a raft of
extra security measures to protect your users.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Yes, but you should not HAVE to do a registry change on every computer
running mailmerge documents just because you are using SP-3 of Office
XP or Office 2003. Do Microsoft have any idea how many computers in
the world are affected negatively by this "security feature".
Surely, they could have added an option in SP-1 of 2003 to simply
turn off the warning. In my area, there are literally hundreds of
computers needing registry changes for this problem of automation
from Access to Word. Surely there is a better fix than this?

dixie

 

[Graham Mayor]

It used to be (and may still be by default) possible to simply double click
the filename *.reg in Windows Explorer for the reg file to be merged with
the registry, but as this is potentially dangerous, I always change the
default action to open such files in Notepad on computers I support.

Select the file in Windows Explorer - right click and 'merge' to the
registry. This will work regardless of the default settings.

If your e-mail address is genuine, I have separately sent you the reg file
to ensure that there is no ambiguity. Please open it in notepad to compare
it with the posted information before using it.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Graham, how would I go about running that file. Do you have to invoke
regedit, or does it automatically find the file and if so, where
should the file be put?

If this can be done semi automatically, it would solve a lot of
problems where the actual users of the workstations in an
organisation are not computer literate enough to change the registry
themselves, so it falls to one person to get around maybe 50
computers and do it.

dixie

Microsoft can't win - they are damned if they don't do something
about security and damned if they do.

For most people this is not the issue you seem to imagine. The
complaints about it here have been few.

It is a minor inconvenience to protect the bulk of users from
themselves, and for those for whom the warning is too much of an
irritant, they have documented a workaround as indicated by Peter.
It is not that difficult to create a registry patch from the
information provided and either use a log-in script to implement it
or provide the patch for those users upset about it to install
themselves. For Word 2003 users that would be a text file called
(say) FIXSQL.reg containing

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options]
"SQLSecurityCheck"=dword:00000000

Just wait until you install the Windows XP SP2 upgrade, which has a
raft of extra security measures to protect your users.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Yes, but you should not HAVE to do a registry change on every
computer running mailmerge documents just because you are using
SP-3 of Office XP or Office 2003. Do Microsoft have any idea how
many computers in the world are affected negatively by this
"security feature".
Surely, they could have added an option in SP-1 of 2003 to simply
turn off the warning. In my area, there are literally hundreds of
computers needing registry changes for this problem of automation
from Access to Word. Surely there is a better fix than this?

dixie

I think you hit nail right on the head Peter. That prompt you
metioned does in fact come up and I'm sure this KB article
addresses the issue. I will try this when I'm back in the office
next week.

Thank you for your assistance!

:

This is almost certainly caused by a new security "feature" in SP3
- if you open your merge document manually in Word, you
willprobably see a new dialog box saying that Word is about to
execute some SQL and requesting your permission to do it. When
Word is being automated as in your scenario, what happens is that
the "no" option is assumed, so your document is opened with no
connection to any data source.

The following MS knowledgebase article may help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;825765


--
Peter Jamieson

Our office is using desktops with Office & Windows XP. We have
an Access database that is used to generate a mail merge of
insurance renewal notices. Clicking the Generate Letters button
in Access opens the completed mail merge document for printing.

After applying Office XP SP3, and pressing the same button to
Generate Letters, the mail merge toolbar is now grayed out with
only the Main Document Setup and Open Data Source buttons
activate. I found a work around by clicking Open Data Source and
selecting the XLS file that the Access database is supposed to
use. Now the toolbar is activate and I can see all the records,
but we did not have to do this extra step before.

I did some searching on the MS KB and applied the Post-SP3 hotfix
package, but that did not correct the issue. Any ideas?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Dixie,

If this can be done semi automatically, it would solve a lot of problems
where the actual users of the workstations in an organisation are not
computer literate enough to change the registry themselves, so it falls to
one person to get around maybe 50 computers and do it.

If you're in an organization with an IT Administration, the most efficient
thing to do would be to create an System Policy (sets a particluar Registry
key for all the users on the network). If you don't know what these are,
time to break out the Office Resource Kit and maybe visit an Office setup
group

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail

 

[dixie]

Have sent that on to one of the IT people Cindy - that should get some sort
of reaction. They are however quite thin on the ground. Not a lot of money
has been spent on IT support.

dixie

 

[R Scott Lowden]

Graham,
This is the exact scenario that I have been contending with for our merge
documents for our clients all across the country; I came up with an
in-eligant workaround by activating events in MS-Word 2003 VBA and then
writing a macro to force open the datasource, but I'd appreciate a copy of
the registry script file you sent to dixie that I could use. I'll have to
play with it to see if it can try to add the entries for both MSO 2002 SP3
and MSO 2003 because we have not established an offical policy on what
versions we develop our materials for.
If you have the file, I'd appreciate it if you could send it to my work
email (e-mail address removed)

It used to be (and may still be by default) possible to simply double click
the filename *.reg in Windows Explorer for the reg file to be merged with
the registry, but as this is potentially dangerous, I always change the
default action to open such files in Notepad on computers I support.

Select the file in Windows Explorer - right click and 'merge' to the
registry. This will work regardless of the default settings.

If your e-mail address is genuine, I have separately sent you the reg file
to ensure that there is no ambiguity. Please open it in notepad to compare
it with the posted information before using it.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Graham, how would I go about running that file. Do you have to invoke
regedit, or does it automatically find the file and if so, where
should the file be put?

If this can be done semi automatically, it would solve a lot of
problems where the actual users of the workstations in an
organisation are not computer literate enough to change the registry
themselves, so it falls to one person to get around maybe 50
computers and do it.

dixie

Microsoft can't win - they are damned if they don't do something
about security and damned if they do.

For most people this is not the issue you seem to imagine. The
complaints about it here have been few.

It is a minor inconvenience to protect the bulk of users from
themselves, and for those for whom the warning is too much of an
irritant, they have documented a workaround as indicated by Peter.
It is not that difficult to create a registry patch from the
information provided and either use a log-in script to implement it
or provide the patch for those users upset about it to install
themselves. For Word 2003 users that would be a text file called
(say) FIXSQL.reg containing

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options]
"SQLSecurityCheck"=dword:00000000

Just wait until you install the Windows XP SP2 upgrade, which has a
raft of extra security measures to protect your users.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>




dixie wrote:
Yes, but you should not HAVE to do a registry change on every
computer running mailmerge documents just because you are using
SP-3 of Office XP or Office 2003. Do Microsoft have any idea how
many computers in the world are affected negatively by this
"security feature".
Surely, they could have added an option in SP-1 of 2003 to simply
turn off the warning. In my area, there are literally hundreds of
computers needing registry changes for this problem of automation
from Access to Word. Surely there is a better fix than this?

dixie

I think you hit nail right on the head Peter. That prompt you
metioned does in fact come up and I'm sure this KB article
addresses the issue. I will try this when I'm back in the office
next week.

Thank you for your assistance!

:

This is almost certainly caused by a new security "feature" in SP3
- if you open your merge document manually in Word, you
willprobably see a new dialog box saying that Word is about to
execute some SQL and requesting your permission to do it. When
Word is being automated as in your scenario, what happens is that
the "no" option is assumed, so your document is opened with no
connection to any data source.

The following MS knowledgebase article may help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;825765


--
Peter Jamieson

Our office is using desktops with Office & Windows XP. We have
an Access database that is used to generate a mail merge of
insurance renewal notices. Clicking the Generate Letters button
in Access opens the completed mail merge document for printing.

After applying Office XP SP3, and pressing the same button to
Generate Letters, the mail merge toolbar is now grayed out with
only the Main Document Setup and Open Data Source buttons
activate. I found a work around by clicking Open Data Source and
selecting the XLS file that the Access database is supposed to
use. Now the toolbar is activate and I can see all the records,
but we did not have to do this extra step before.

I did some searching on the MS KB and applied the Post-SP3 hotfix
package, but that did not correct the issue. Any ideas?

 

[Graham Mayor]

The content of the registry patch is listed in the earlier message i.e.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options]
"SQLSecurityCheck"=dword:00000000


Copy the three lines to notepad and save as FIXSQL.REG


--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Graham,
This is the exact scenario that I have been contending with for our
merge documents for our clients all across the country; I came up
with an in-eligant workaround by activating events in MS-Word 2003
VBA and then writing a macro to force open the datasource, but I'd
appreciate a copy of the registry script file you sent to dixie that
I could use. I'll have to play with it to see if it can try to add
the entries for both MSO 2002 SP3 and MSO 2003 because we have not
established an offical policy on what versions we develop our
materials for.
If you have the file, I'd appreciate it if you could send it to my
work email (e-mail address removed)

It used to be (and may still be by default) possible to simply
double click the filename *.reg in Windows Explorer for the reg file
to be merged with the registry, but as this is potentially
dangerous, I always change the default action to open such files in
Notepad on computers I support.

Select the file in Windows Explorer - right click and 'merge' to the
registry. This will work regardless of the default settings.

If your e-mail address is genuine, I have separately sent you the
reg file to ensure that there is no ambiguity. Please open it in
notepad to compare it with the posted information before using it.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Graham, how would I go about running that file. Do you have to
invoke regedit, or does it automatically find the file and if so,
where
should the file be put?

If this can be done semi automatically, it would solve a lot of
problems where the actual users of the workstations in an
organisation are not computer literate enough to change the registry
themselves, so it falls to one person to get around maybe 50
computers and do it.

dixie

Microsoft can't win - they are damned if they don't do something
about security and damned if they do.

For most people this is not the issue you seem to imagine. The
complaints about it here have been few.

It is a minor inconvenience to protect the bulk of users from
themselves, and for those for whom the warning is too much of an
irritant, they have documented a workaround as indicated by Peter.
It is not that difficult to create a registry patch from the
information provided and either use a log-in script to implement it
or provide the patch for those users upset about it to install
themselves. For Word 2003 users that would be a text file called
(say) FIXSQL.reg containing

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options]
"SQLSecurityCheck"=dword:00000000

Just wait until you install the Windows XP SP2 upgrade, which has a
raft of extra security measures to protect your users.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>




dixie wrote:
Yes, but you should not HAVE to do a registry change on every
computer running mailmerge documents just because you are using
SP-3 of Office XP or Office 2003. Do Microsoft have any idea how
many computers in the world are affected negatively by this
"security feature".
Surely, they could have added an option in SP-1 of 2003 to simply
turn off the warning. In my area, there are literally hundreds of
computers needing registry changes for this problem of automation
from Access to Word. Surely there is a better fix than this?

dixie

I think you hit nail right on the head Peter. That prompt you
metioned does in fact come up and I'm sure this KB article
addresses the issue. I will try this when I'm back in the office
next week.

Thank you for your assistance!

:

This is almost certainly caused by a new security "feature" in
SP3
- if you open your merge document manually in Word, you
willprobably see a new dialog box saying that Word is about to
execute some SQL and requesting your permission to do it. When
Word is being automated as in your scenario, what happens is
that the "no" option is assumed, so your document is opened
with no connection to any data source.

The following MS knowledgebase article may help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;825765


--
Peter Jamieson

Our office is using desktops with Office & Windows XP. We have
an Access database that is used to generate a mail merge of
insurance renewal notices. Clicking the Generate Letters button
in Access opens the completed mail merge document for printing.

After applying Office XP SP3, and pressing the same button to
Generate Letters, the mail merge toolbar is now grayed out with
only the Main Document Setup and Open Data Source buttons
activate. I found a work around by clicking Open Data Source
and selecting the XLS file that the Access database is
supposed to
use. Now the toolbar is activate and I can see all the
records, but we did not have to do this extra step before.

I did some searching on the MS KB and applied the Post-SP3
hotfix package, but that did not correct the issue. Any ideas?