Re: Mail merge toolbar unavailable after SP3

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From: Graham Mayor (gmayor_at_DELETECAPSmvps.org)
Date: 08/24/04 

Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 06:16:36 +0100

Microsoft can't win - they are damned if they don't do something about
security and damned if they do.

For most people this is not the issue you seem to imagine. The complaints
about it here have been few.

It is a minor inconvenience to protect the bulk of users from themselves,
and for those for whom the warning is too much of an irritant, they have
documented a workaround as indicated by Peter. It is not that difficult to
create a registry patch from the information provided and either use a
log-in script to implement it or provide the patch for those users upset
about it to install themselves. For Word 2003 users that would be a text
file called (say) FIXSQL.reg containing

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options]
"SQLSecurityCheck"=dword:00000000

Just wait until you install the Windows XP SP2 upgrade, which has a raft of
extra security measures to protect your users. :) 

-- 
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor -  Word MVP
My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
dixie wrote:
> Yes, but you should not HAVE to do a registry change on every computer
> running mailmerge documents just because you are using SP-3 of Office
> XP or Office 2003.  Do Microsoft have any idea how many computers in
> the world are affected negatively by this "security feature".
> Surely, they could have added an option in SP-1 of 2003 to simply
> turn off the warning.  In my area, there are literally hundreds of
> computers needing registry changes for this problem of automation
> from Access to Word.  Surely there is a better fix than this?
>
> dixie
>
> "Kirstin" <Kirstin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:18DB1DC6-4DEF-4D7F-A7DE-4722D059701B@microsoft.com...
>> I think you hit nail right on the head Peter.  That prompt you
>> metioned does in fact come up and I'm sure this KB article addresses
>> the issue.  I will try this when I'm back in the office next week.
>>
>> Thank you for your assistance!
>>
>> "Peter Jamieson" wrote:
>>
>>> This is almost certainly caused by a new security "feature" in SP3
>>> - if you open your merge document manually in Word, you
>>> willprobably see a new dialog box saying that Word is about to
>>> execute some SQL and requesting your permission to do it. When Word
>>> is being automated as in your scenario, what happens is that the
>>> "no" option is assumed, so your document is opened with no
>>> connection to any data source.
>>>
>>> The following MS knowledgebase article may help:
>>>
>>> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;825765
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Peter Jamieson
>>>
>>> "Kirstin" <Kirstin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>>> news:A5F94836-3990-4619-8B03-404CD311E37A@microsoft.com...
>>>> Our office is using desktops with Office & Windows XP.  We have an
>>>> Access database that is used to generate a mail merge of insurance
>>>> renewal notices. Clicking the Generate Letters button in Access
>>>> opens the completed mail merge document for printing.
>>>>
>>>> After applying Office XP SP3, and pressing the same button to
>>>> Generate Letters, the mail merge toolbar is now grayed out with
>>>> only the Main Document Setup and Open Data Source buttons
>>>> activate.  I found a work around by clicking Open Data Source and
>>>> selecting the XLS file that the Access database is supposed to
>>>> use.  Now the toolbar is activate and I can see all the records,
>>>> but we did not have to do this extra step before.
>>>>
>>>> I did some searching on the MS KB and applied the Post-SP3 hotfix
>>>> package, but that did not correct the issue.  Any ideas?
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