SP2 update causes automation crashes

[news.microsoft.com]

Help!

A client's server was automatically updated to MS Office 2003 SP2 at 3am
this morning. Normally this would be wonderful, but a Windows Service that I
had written, that runs on that server, and that utilizes Excel is now
crashing everytime it tries to open (via automation) a spreadsheet. Aarghhh!

The Event Log says first, "Rejected Safe Mode action: Microsoft Office
Excel."

Next event in the log says, "Faulting application excel.exe, version
11.0.6560.0, stamp 4296b6f2, faulting module mso.dll, version 11.0.6568.0,
stamp 42e18ef6, debug? 0, fault address 0x0003446c."

This applicaiton has been working just flawlessly for over a year, and was
working fine yesterday. As of the update at 3am this morning, it stops
working. I have to assume there's a connection.

Anybody able to give me a clue?

Rob Schripsema
DeWaard and Jones Company

 

[Rob Schripsema]

More info:

First, sorry for the mixup. My name is NOT news.microsoft.com. Goofed up in
configuring my news reader.

Second, the automation is being performed in a C# app written under .NET
Framework 1.1 .

Rob Schripsema

 

[Hugh Stanley]

test

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

Don't know whether this is related but whenever you update office to another
sp it will automatically set security default to high, if you go to
tools>macro>security you'll have some options pertaining to security and
trusted publishers

HTH

--

Regards,

Peo Sjoblom

Northwest Excel Solutions

www.nwexcelsolutions.com

(remove ^^ from email address)

Portland, Oregon

 

[Gerry]

I have got the same problem. I installed some updates last night and today
my service wont generate excel stuff. I generates it fine from regular code
but not from the service. I get the same stuff in the event log also.

Did you find any sort of resolution to this problem?

 

[Gil Guerra]

I also have that problem. Im running Windows 2003 Server SP1, Office 2003 SP2
(worked before instaling the SP2). im loading some data into XLS files from
Excel's COM Object in PHP 5.1.2.

Exactly the same thing in mso.dll ....

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Gil Guerra]

i got it to work by replacing the mso.dll file, the version 11.0.6568.0 (SP2)
by the version 11.0.5606.0 (the one in the installation on O156140_.CAB). I
guess this dll is a big isue for SP2, but if doesn't work, at least while we
have an answer we can work like that.

If someone finds out how to deal with it (in a right way), please let us know.

 

[Gerry]

Cheers for the info.

That worked for me also. The second error no longer occurs and my service
generates my excel document as needed. However I still get the first event
log error report about the rejected safe mode. I guess if its not hurting me
i wont worry about it. Lets hope a patch is released to fix this one soon.
Or as Gil said a 'Correct' way of dealing with it is found.

Regards Gerry

 

[RdeTuinman]

Thanks for this info!

I was migrating a Lotus Domino Server from a Windows 2000 Server (With Excel
XP) to a Windows 2003 Server. A Lotus Notes agent generates an Excel Report
every night. I had installed Excel 2003 with SP2 for this to work, but it
didn't and Excel crashed.

Now i have replaced the mso.dll with version 11.0.6408.0 (it came from a SP1
installation). And it works. I also resolved the eventlog entry about the
rejected safe mode. You will have to start excel.exe under the SYSTEM
account. You can do this as follows:

Schedule cmd.exe one minute later than the current time, like:

C:> at hh:mm /interactive cmd.exe

At the given time you will see a command shell on the console(!!) of the
server. This cmd.exe runs under SYSTEM. Now change dir to C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11 and execute excel.exe. You will now be asked
to start Excel in safe mode. Choose 'No' and close excel again. The next time
your service will start Excel it won't be generating this error message again.

Hope this will help.

Kind regards,
Rob