Microsoft hoses user data - again!

ZDNet ^ | January 3rd, 2008 | by Robin Harris

[Swordmaker]

Here is an explanation from MS... and a semi mea culpa...

http://blogs.msdn.com/david_leblanc/archive/2008/01/04/office-sp3-and-file-formats.aspx

[Swordmaker]

Microsoft has a work around for those older files:

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Method 1: Use a trusted location, or create an exempt location

To do this, follow these steps, as appropriate for the version of Word that you are running:

•

In Word 2007, if you trust the file that you want to open, you can open that file even if the file type is blocked by the registry. You can override the registry policy settings by moving the file to a trusted location.

For more information about how to create, to remove, or to change a trusted location for files, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100319991033.aspx (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100319991033.aspx)

•

In Word 2003, there are no trusted locations. You can create an exempt location to override the registry policy settings. To create an exempt location, follow these steps:

1.	Exit Word 2003.
2.	Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
3.	Locate and then click one of the following registry subkeys: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common
4.	Point to New on the Edit menu, and then click Key.
5.	Type OICEExemptions for the name of the key.
6.	Point to New on the Edit menu, and then click String Value.
7.	Type a string name, and then press ENTER. For example, type ExemptDirectory.
8.	Right-click the string name that you typed in step 7, and then click Modify.
9.	In the Value data box, type the path of the directory that contains the file, and then click OK. For example, if your document is in the C:\My Documents folder, type C:\My Documents in the Value data box. Note You must create the folder. Any subfolders are not automatically exempted. For any additional folders that you would like to make exempt, repeat steps 6 to 9 by creating string values such as "ExemptDirectory1," and "ExemptDirectory2."
10.	On the File menu, click Exit to exit Registry Editor.

---

I hope this helps...

[djf]

Don't forget these!
NEVER Forget these!!!

[jimtorr]

I’ve installed OOo on my iMac 1.9 PPC machine over the weekend, just to try it out. I installed the X11 version.

It looks okay, very full featured, and I like the ability to save documents as a PDF. Documents print fine. One problem, though, is that it is very slow to open. It takes nearly 3 minutes.

Did I do something wrong during installation, or is the X11 version just slow?

[twntaipan]

Try NeoOffice, if they have a PPC version. It is Open Office dressed for Mac.

[SlowBoat407]

[ShadowAce]

'Draconian' Microsoft promises to make Office work again

Update Microsoft has threatened to release a fix for an Office 2003 update that may well have the productivity suite work as intended once again.

As reported earlier Service Pack 3 for Office takes the unprecedented step of barring access to files created with earlier versions of the product. Install the Service Pack and your stash of documents (the ones you may be keeping for legal reasons) are suddenly just so much wasted disk and tape space.

We are talking seriously restrictive measures here. Office offers no warnings, the SP cannot be rolled back and there are no options that an average end-user can take to fix the problem.

Yes, that does indeed mean the lack of a dialog box saying:

"I am a sentient human being. I can assess risk. I can spell ‘responsibility’ and even, occasionally, assume it. I really, really want/need to open this old Word document. So go ahead, make my day.”

Just:

It's not a bug . . . .

Microsoft did issue a registry hack but covered it with dire warnings about how dangerous hacking the registry can be.

The word draconian seemed appropriate, so we used it with Reed Shaffner, Microsoft Office Worldwide Product Manager. Very disarmingly, he agreed.

“Yes, I agree, it was too draconian.” he said. We hate it when Product Managers do that.

He then went on to say that in response to the user feedback, Microsoft plans to issue a new fix in the very near future. The fix will come in the form of a link that you can follow which will hack (sorry, modify) your registry for you so that the problem goes away. And we'll be providing that link as soon as possible.

Still, Shaffner was at pains to point out that using the fix leaves the machine open to the very vulnerability that the measure was designed to stop, so Microsoft would still advise people not to do this unless they have a very good reason.

He also supplied more information about the vulnerability. He said that the problem wasn’t in the file format as such; it was in the code that is used to parse these earlier files. We were just about to point out that this was Microsoft’s code (and, therefore Microsoft’s fault) but he beat us to it. We hate it when they do that as well.

So, zero out of ten for the heavy handed SP but grudging respect for actually listening to users and fixing the problem. ®

Update

Since we filed this, Microsoft has in fact managed to post the Office fixes. Travel over to this support site and look for the "How to enable blocked file types" heading.

UnblockWord.reg. Lovely.

[polymuser]

A W98SE machine w/ Office 97 would be a decent fallback, too.

[dayglored]

> One problem, though, is that it is very slow to open. It takes nearly 3 minutes. Did I do something wrong during installation, or is the X11 version just slow?

OpenOffice takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to load on older machines; it takes considerable time even on a 2GHz Intel Core2 Duo. Runs fine, but the initial load of the libraries and whatnot is slow. I find it's best to leave it loaded (running in the dock) and just open/edit/close docs rather than load from scratch for each doc.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system.

No. These problems might require you to simply import the registry copy that you exported before you started doing any editing on the Registry.
Or at the very worst, restore that image you made of your system last night.
You did export the Registry and take a snapshot of your system, didn't you?

But, in general, it sucks that MS has seen fit to remove this backwards compatibility. Security reasons? Yah. right.

[brityank]

One problem, though, is that it is very slow to open. It takes nearly 3 minutes.

Not sure why; on my WinXP I have a Quickstart icon in the system tray that I right click on and select which app I want -- then it opens fairly quickly, three seconds or so. I also have two versions of F@H running against my dual core Intel pushing my cpu up to 98%, but they don't impact my operations at all. My system is slow on booting up, but I know that's because I have a bunch of stuff setting up in the background. OK. I shut down the Quickstarter, and it does take a while to restart, so that may be it. There's a checkmark against "Load OpenOffice.org during system startup." Seems to have about 1.5Meg preloaded out of my 2GB memory.

[zeugma]

Does this line from that blog entry not send shivers down your spine?...

From the data we have on file opens, very few users open files in these formats, so we decided to modify the default behavior to this safer approach.

 

[zeugma]

 Microsoft has a work around for those older files:

 

Oh yeah. Great. Glad I use a hard to use operating system like Linux. LOL

[bmwcyle]

Microsoft is hanging themselves as fast as Hillary.

[brityank]

I won’t say that Big Blue is an exception, but I will say that Big Blue is way, way, way better than most.

One of the big reasons that IBM had to make their systems backward compatible was that their Customers banded together and demanded it. The S/360 was the start of that; most previous hardware changes made a lot of the system programming obsolete, and Blue's Customers realised that they needed a way to help themselves and pressure Blue to "Do the right thing!^©" The Users Group SHARE had a big hand in that.

SHARE Inc. ^ is a volunteer-run user group for IBM mainframe computers that was founded in 1955 by Los Angeles-area IBM 701 users. It evolved into a forum for exchanging technical information about programming languages, operating systems, database systems, and user experiences for enterprise users of small, medium, and large-scale IBM computers such as IBM S/360, IBM S/370, zSeries, pSeries, and xSeries.

[Redcloak]

Even if you don’t intend to use it full time, OpenOffice is a handy thing to have on your computer. I’ve used it several times to save Office documents that Office couldn’t open. OOo opened them just fine and the files were readable by Office after I let OOo save them using the Office file formats.

[papasmurf]

$ounds like an opportunity for $omeone to create a commercial GUI application for changing the$e regi$try $etting$! :)

[sionnsar]

OpenOffice used to take forever to load on my system, but since I added a graphics card (to get support for 1440x900 display), it loads in considerably less time.

[N3WBI3]

While MS should making turning the default off easier their explanation is fine. For years people have harped that MS needs to be more secure out of the box and now that they are taking steps towards that people complain again..

[Swordmaker]

You did export your registry and take a snapshot of your system, didn't you?

Registry? We Mac users don't need no stinkin' registry!