Re: About File "types" and Office 12.1 Service Pack and double-clicking

I'm personally finding this a very interesting discussion. I can't answer all your questions and Word is not my forté. I'm sharing my observations not as an MVP but as someone who does technical support for a living.

Steve Maser wrote:

New Thread!

OK -- the argument that some MVPs have been making is that the classic
"WDBN" Word file type has been depreciated from being
double-click-opened in Office 12.1 because of some as-yet-unannounced
security issue.

Fine.

I suspect this move in 12.1.0 is one of many predecessors to the return of VBA, which was recently announced. They've removed WDBN, which means they don't want others taking advantage of that file type and allowing a malicious file to launch Word.

1) Why is the file type of "WDBN" not a security issue for Word 2004?
Which, because of the lack of VBA in Excel -- is probably going to make
Office 2004 the default Office system for quite some time...

Who knows? We may see that changed too in an update. But I doubt it. We have to keep in mind Microsoft's support life-cycle.

Office 2004 is marketed as a product that will work on Mac OS X 10.2.8 (IIRC) and higher. That means it still needs to work for older versions of the Mac OS where file type and creator are more important.

Office 2008, however, is supported only on 10.4.9 and higher. Office 2008 can begin closing old security issues, which have probably been around for quite a while. I suspect this is one of them. And Apple has long been promising that file type and creator codes would be going away. I see this move as housekeeping and a predecessor for more to come.

It's not (yet?) been made clear what the double-click-opening issue
with "WDBN" file types are that it only affects Office 2008, but not
2004. If this is an OOXML issue, will it (eventually?) hurt Office
2004 whenever the long-delayed translator for 2004 is released?

Again, I suspect this move is in preparation for something farther in the future. And we should expect more. No idea on the Office 2004 converters patch.

2) If the argument is that certain web browsers/mail programs are
doing things "wrong" about putting "old" file types on
downloaded/decoded attachments and should be leaving this *blank* and
relying on "extension" only (rather than updating for a more current
file type)...

Then why does Word 12.1:

A) Allow me to save/edit/open a word document with no extension,
without throwing up a red stop sign?

I think you can assume something like this is coming. When? I don't know.

B) Still put a "W8BN" file type on documents it saves? If they
want to lead by example, why is this not blank as well (a type is added
if I save the document with or withouth an extension.)

Probably coming too. Although Apple deprecated file type and creator codes some time ago, they still haven't removed support for them. Until that happens then Microsoft should leave this support.

However, in the meantime, Microsoft should certainly do everything it can to move its users away from what's deprecated and into what will be supported. We're in a transition period. I wouldn't expect everything to move quickly. They'll certainly want to make this as painless as possible.

C) Not allow "extensions" to override file types? -- Which would
resolve the problem (likely) for the vast amount of users. (Admittedly, I can see why this might be considered a bad idea, but...)


Why is there not internal logic in the program that says something like
"well, it's "WDBN", but it has a ".doc" extension, so we'll open it
anyway...")

Deciding which application opens which file is the Finder's responsibility. Word can't incorporate this logic. I believe that by default the Finder *still* uses type and creator codes before file extensions. That's an Apple decision and I suspect they have a time frame for changing this behavior.

So, just to restate my thoughts:

1. Expect more and similar changes.
2. Expect a *transition* and not a sudden change in behavior.
3. Expect that this is for the long term.

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
.

Relevant Pages

  • RE: Is a file DOCX or XLSX?
    ... determine the file type according to a file stream. ... Microsoft Online Community Support ... For MSDN subscribers whose posts are left unanswered, ... where an initial response from the community or a Microsoft Support ...
    (microsoft.public.office.developer.com.add_ins)
  • Re: Tracking which app created a file?
    ... Does that suggest that the type and creator codes are not used by Pages or ... open that file type. ... to launch but fail to open the .doc. ... Speaking more fully to your question, I think that changing the extension ...
    (comp.sys.mac.system)
  • Re: About File "types" and Office 12.1 Service Pack and double-clicking
    ... I'm sharing my observations not as an MVP but as someone who does technical support for a living. ... which means they don't want others taking advantage of that file type and allowing a malicious file to launch Word. ... Allow me to save/edit/open a word document with no extension, ... Although Apple deprecated file type and creator codes some time ago, they still haven't removed support for them. ...
    (microsoft.public.mac.office.word)
  • RE: Is a file DOCX or XLSX?
    ... file type according to the file stream, we could utilize the file signature ... For instance, if you rename a xlsx file to docx, ... Microsoft Online Community Support ... where an initial response from the community or a Microsoft Support ...
    (microsoft.public.office.developer.com.add_ins)
  • Re: confirmation form no longer works
    ... Was that the file type you were writing to or the format for sending the email? ... HTML is not support via the FP Form Handler. ... FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc. ...
    (microsoft.public.frontpage.client)
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