Office Xp Problem With Saving New Files

[Austen Welham]

I hope someone might be able to help me. Am having trouble saving new files to a mapped network drive after installing office xp service pack 3.

Error message reads "The folder 'S:\etc' isn't accessible. The folder may be located in an unavailable location, protected with a password, or the filename contains a / or \"

It lets me save to local drive or as default name given by office and once saved I can then save onto mapped drive.

Cannot find any help anywhere and it's really beginning to get on my nerves.

Any help would be appreciated

[horatio_too]

Hi Austen

No solution for you (yet), but if it is any comfort, I have a client who has started having EXACTLY the same problem within the last week or so.

In their scenario, it is a very basic peer-to-peer network, with a Win98SE machine acting as the server and an XP Home, SP2 box with Office XP as the troublesome client.

Having spent several hours on it today, I can summarise things as follows:-

- The problem is across all installed Office XP applications, not just Word (as some posts on other Boards have suggested)

- Uninstalling and re-installing Office XP made no difference.

- After the re-install, the behaviour was the same even BEFORE I applied any Office XP service packs

- Although the Client has Norton Internet Security 2004 Pro installed, this does not appear to be the culprit (again, Norton has been blamed on other Boards), as the behaviour persisted after a complete uninstall of Norton

As both a Microsoft partner and a Technet subscriber, I now intend logging this with MS, but if anybody finds a solution beforehand, then, like Austen, I am desparate to know. As/when I get a reply from MS, I will post it here.

Regards

Horatio

[Austen Welham]

Horatio,

Thanks mate.

Our set-up here is very similar to your client. Windows 98 machine acting as server.

Definitely not Norton as we have AVG instead.

And I agree, it's across all Office apps.

Any help would save a few computers taking flying lessons.

Cheers

Austen

[bukweet]

Greetings!

One of my clients is having the same problem as you two. However, they are not using Win98 on any of the machines. It's a peer-to-peer network with each client running XP Pro. Each PC has Office 2003 Basic. Each PC is also using Norton AV. So far the problem has only been with Word.

The problem began a few days ago and is somewhat sporadic. Sometimes the folder will open, other times not. I did download the latest Office updates but that made no difference. I thought perhaps that the names of the folders were too long, so I tried using shorter names. That worked briefly - then back to the error. I also tried moving a particular folder that seems to be the most troublesome to a different directory. It appears to be working right now, but it doesn't tell me why I am getting the error in the first place.

Any tips for fixing this problem is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

buk

[horatio_too]

Hi Buk,

It sounds as though you have a similar, but slightly different problem there.

From what I've read from other posts around, if the problem returns, then you MAY wish to try the following:-

- Delete (or rename) and then recreate Normal.dot

- Turn off the Norton Office Plug In (Start NAV, Options, Miscellaneous, untick Enable Office Plug-In)

- Zap temporary files

This, at least, is the advice that I've seen around for the same behaviour when other people have had my problem ONLY with Word (rather than also impacting on Excel, Publisher, Powerpoint...)

It may, of course, be something completely different !

Hope that that helps.

Regards,

Horatio

[bukweet]

Thanks, Horatio. I actually deleted the normal.dot template as well as the data key in the registry, then removed all temp files before I posted. Still no luck. The only thing I haven't tried yet is turning off Norton. Norton has definitely given me fits in the past.

There is another possible solution to this problem that I haven't had a chance yet to try. Check out this link -

OfficeKB

If this helps anyone, please let us know. Thanks!

buk

[horatio_too]

Hi Buk,

Many thanks - I had found, and WRONGLY dismissed, this fix, because I fell for the first rule of IT - NEVER believe the word of a user !

The Client did not have the "Show updates" checkbox ticked in Add/Remove programs, so led me to believe that Windows XP Hotfix KB885250 was NOT installed.

Having walked things through with them on the phone this morning, we have now uninstalled KB885250 and their problem is fixed.

Austen - Hope that this helps you, too - although clearly it does reopen the security weakness that the Hotfix was designed to overcome.

Buk - Hope that you get as successful an outcome with your Word 2003 problem

Regards,

Horatio

[Austen Welham]

Horatio and Buk,

Thanks - worked a treat.

Austen

[bukweet]

Thanks for the update, Horatio and Austen. I will be notifying my client to remove this update. I don't even remember what the KB885250 was supposed to fix? Let's hope MS gets a new fix for this problem ASAP!

buk