[dba-Tech] MS-Word template location missing

Is this an opportunity for a data-driven solution? I.e. store the paths
in a table then look them up. When something radical occurs such as the
death of server1 and its replacement by server2, do a replace in the
table and all the code hangs together.

Just a thought. There could be problems I'm not seeing.

Arthur

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Mike Tope
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 8:17 PM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: [dba-Tech] MS-Word template location missing


Dear All
I can't be the first to see this. What solutions are there ?

MS Word stores a reference to the attached template inside its
documents. Sounds like a good idea at first.

Our projects people have over a period of years kept that template path
on a server that has now closed down (a year ago maybe). There is a new
one, different server but actually a very similar path therein (but not
in my User or Workgroup template paths).

They've been using NT4 with Office 2000, loading up old documents just
fine. Now they're being given Windows XP with Office 2000, and their
entire Word document back catalog is a disaster. Each document they
complain about (may not be all in any given location) takes minutes
(five or ten) to open on XP, but NT4 machines still seem just fine.

Investigation so far shows that the local XP machine is tapping its
heels, processor idle, for the duration. So it looks like maybe a DNS
query is going out for the missing server and the response when it comes
is negative anyway. Whereas maybe NT4 didn't bother about doing all that
and just used a nearby normal.dot straightaway.

Interrogated from an Access mdb using a WdApp object, it still takes
just that long to open the document (with the switch/retry box up), but
then reports that it's attached to normal.dot. I can look in the live
Word/Tools/Templates&Addins, and the full URL of the missing template is
visible, but VBA doesn't see that at all. So I can't select a document
for editing based on having the wrong template attached.

I put a line in my pc's hosts file to give the new server an alias of
the old servername. This speeds things up tremendously, but VBA still
sees normal.dot as the attached template.

I'm still investigating; maybe I'll move my template location to where
the template is, or copy the template to my user or workgroup template
location. I presume the Projects people have suitable template locations
entered already, but I'll have to check.

I have entered searches in google but I haven't found anyone else
reporting this - perhaps the solution is obvious to everyone else ?

I'm afraid I'm a late night (UK) user only so I'll just have to collect
your ideas till tomorrow.

Regards
Mike Tope

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