Word 2007 - document variables corrupted when saving .doc as .docx or .docm

J

Julian Ladbury

Word 2007 has often had problems processing document variables contained in
97-2003 files when they are saved in the new formats. Fix 959645 sorted them
out, and seemed to reman intact when SP2 was released. However, they have
recently come back with a vengeance.

I have spent a couple of days researching this, and found the following:

1. Problems were reintroduced to SP2 (though not the same ones as those
pre-959645) with security patch 969604
2. Hotfix 970942 is supposed to cure them.

However, I have found that while 970942 does alter the effects of 969604, it
does not fix things entirely. In fact, with 969604 and 970942 on together,
behaviour reverts (in my test cases at least) to exactly as it was before
959645. The problems seems to be with non-printable characters.

I have uploaded a file which documents my investigations and contains macros
to reproduce the problem. You can find it at this address:

http://cid-75e3e350f569b887.skydriv....Public/Word2007 Doc Variables Corruption.doc
 
C

Colbert Zhou [MSFT]

Hello Julian,

Thanks very much for the feedback and your detailed repro steps! So the
problem here is Hotfix 970942 does not fully recover the doc-variable issue
caused by hotfix 969604(12.0.6504.5000), right?

I will submit the issue through an internal bug report channel so that the
product group can track the issue and fix it in future hotfix or sp3.
Probably maybe in the SP3. If the behavior is really important to your
scenario, I suggest to contact the Microsoft CSS directly to see if they
consider a hotfix for this,
https://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?Gprid=8753&st=1


Best regards,
Ji Zhou
Managed Newsgroup Support Team
 
J

Julian Ladbury

Colbert,

Thanks. I would summarise the issue as '970942 does not incorporate the
changes made in 959645'.

I won't ask for a hotfix - I have already decided that I will have to force
users not to save in the 2007 formats so that they never trip over the
problem, regardless of what service level they might be running. My product
serves unknown users with a wide range of releases and service levels; many
of them would not even know what version of Word they are running, let alone
feel confident about asking their IT departments to install a fix! I just
hope MS keep the binary formats alive for a good few years to come.

Julian
 
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