Mailmerge Errors

[Rydia]

One of my coworkers is having trouble with her Microsoft 2007 mail merge
capabilities.

I am able to access the same documents with the same mail merge datasources
(on a network drive) however, she cannot.

If we try to "Use a New List" from her machine, we get an error "Class Not
Registered."

After locating the datasource, even though it's saved in the document, we
tried to use the existing list but modify the data. We received another
error indicating:

"The connection to the recipient list has been lost. Check that the file
has not been moved or deleted and that the network location is accessible."

Accessing the datasource works perfectly fine from my machine and several
other co-workers machines.

What could possibly have happened that would drop her access to Mail Merge?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Just some suggestions (I've either heard of or seen some of these problems
before but never managed to get to the bottom of them). But this one is new
to me:

If we try to "Use a New List" from her machine, we get an error "Class Not
Registered."

1. When Word 2007 creates a new datasource, AFAIK it uses an OLE DB
connection to the Access/ACE/Jet database engine. This error suggests that
there might be something wrong in that area. Access itself does not have to
be installed, but the database engine would have to be there and working
properly. I do not know in what circumstances there would be a difference,
but it may be worth checking that the same OLE DB provider is on her machine
as on the others.

As an initial check you could try
a. create a new mail merge main document in Word
b. in Select Recipients, choose "Use existing list"
c. in the Select Data Source dialog, click the New Source button (at the
bottom)
d. Select Other/advanced, then click Next
e. click the Provider tab if it is not already selected.
f. look for

Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider (this is the older provider)
Microsoft Office 12.0 Access Database Engline OLE DB Provider (this is the
newer provider needed to get at some of the new facilities in Access 2007)

I would actually guess that most machines will list both. If she has
neither, you'll need to install this stuff (not sure how at this point). If
other machines have both but she only has one, I'd try to install the other
one.

Unfortunately, just because both are listed, it does not mean that they are
functioning correctly. But perhaps we could leave that for now.

2. Are you connecting to a particular type of data source on the network
drive? If so, what is it, and
a. are you using documents created in an earlier version of Word or new
ones?
b. if your data sources are Access, or "Office Address Lists" stored in
..mdb files, do you know how you are connecting to them? e.g. are you using
OLE DB (the default in Word 2002 onwards), DDE (the default in Word 2000 and
earlier), or "don't know" ?
c. if you try creating another type of data source (e.g. a table in a Word
document) does anyone have any problems?

3. Is her computer running a different version of either Windows or Word
(e.g. no SP, SP1, or SP2) from the other computers?

4. Are there any visible differences the access permissions (on her machine
versus other machines) for
a. the file she's trying to use
b. the folder
c. the share

Peter Jamieson