Office 2003 Professional after installing Win XP SP2 - problems

[Smokie]

Hi

After installing XP's SP2, Office 2003 Pro comes up with a few problems.
First, Word pops up with a "!" message, of the following:

"This document could not be registered. It will not be possible to create
links from this document to other documents."

This pops up immediately after openning Word. Even a blank document or a
previously saved document.

Secondly, Office Assistant no longer works. We get the following "!" message:

"The Office Assistant could not be started. The assistant might not have
been disabled properly, there might be problems with your office setup, or
your computer might be low on memory".

We have two Windows XP Home machines, and the problem started on both ONLY
after updating to Windows' Service Pack 2. One machine has been reverted back
to SP1 and once again, everything with Office is fine. The other, remaining
with SP2 is not. The SAME problems were encountered on BOTH machines after
SP2, although on the second machine the Office Assistant message was stating
that something needed to be installed, but I forget what that was now as I've
reverted it back to SP1.

Has anyone else had this problem with Office 2003 after updating to XP's
SP2? If so is there a fix? Why does this happen with Office, don't they test
for things like this!?

 

[User]

I had the same problem, reinstall SP2, that will take care of it.

 

[Sam]

I had the same problem, reinstall SP2, that will take care of it.

What amazes me is MS Seems to purposely make a patch, add on or new
OS To render older software unusable making you have to buy the newest
versions.
Ex. Office 2003 Doesn't MS Check compatibilty before releasing
patches?
I was only affected by older MS-DOS Programs that used to load no
longer do, no big deal , but for companies it's a major problem.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Don't upgrade, or buy/obtain technology that doesn't change. Or just
don't use technology. Up to you.

 

[Smokie]

I have found the probelm.

The problem is not with Office itself - but rather a service that needs to
be running. The service is DCOM (DCOM Server Process Launcher).

Before SP2, many people regarded DCOM as a security risk - and no real need
for it to be running. So, DCOM on my machines was safely turned off. Upon
installing SP2 -- this was needed to be switched ON but remained OFF. This
was the cause of my problems (and I take back what I said about MS not
testing for things like this ).

Now in SP2, Microsoft have fixed any related vulnerabilties or weaknesess
(we hope) with DCOM and it seems also that DCOM is now being used.

Office 2003 PRO obviously needs it, and so do a few other third-party
programs including Notron Antivirus 2004 and their LiveUpdate application.

All-in-all, I must say SP2 is a pretty good service pack. Once enabling DCOM
here, I've had no problems at all. I don't like the Security Center though
and there are (regardless of Microsoft's view) vulnerablilites in SC. And
"improvements" in IE don't bother me because I don't use IE.

Thanks for the replies all -- take care.

 

[Smokie]

I have found the cause of the problem on both machines here.

On SP1 (and before) many deemed the serivce DCOM (DCOM Server Process
Launcher) to be a security risk if left at its default state of constantly
running. On my machines this service was disabled.

In SP2 Microsoft have apparantly fixed any issues with DCOM and it seems
some programs now use it (including Office 2003 PRO -- maybe they're using it
now "for the sake of it" as it WAS NOT used before!). Some third-party
applications use it also, including Norton Antivirus 2004 and their
LiveUpdate application.

As this was my fault (took a while to realise it was DCOM) I take back what
I said about Microsoft "not" testing their software.

All-in-all SP2 is a decent service pack. After enabling DCOM I have not had
any problems with it. The SC (Security Center) is a joke and had
vulnerabilities (regarles off what Microsoft stubornly insist) and Automatic
Updates is a pain to "kill" (constantly runs on your system even if you
switch it OFF) but got there in the end. I prefer to update software manually.

Anyway, thanks to those who replied -- take care.

 

[Smokie]

Sorry for posting twice -- the first time it didn't go through and I lost the
page.

Somehow it posted twice now