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Word 2003 - Save As greyed out 1

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aquaboy1976

aquaboy1976

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Nov 7, 2002
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I installed office 2003 on a user's computer. At first there were issues with macros so I set the security level to medium. Now this user opens their email, opens an email with a word attachment, chooses to enable macros and opens the word document. From within the word document, they click file and then go to save as, but save as is greyed out. Why is this? What can I do to fix this?
 
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Well, if there's macros in the file, those macros may very well be disabling the save function...

I strongly suggest NEVER saving files that way in the first place. While our PCs like us to think it's just fine, it's far better to right-click the attachment's icon and hit Save as there...

Anne Troy
 
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After the person right clicks on the attachment and chooses "save as" and saves it, the option to "save as" is still greyed out after opening word.
 
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When I open Outlook it says "Security Warning" at the top of the window. The message is "'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 11\Startup\idmword8.dot'

Macros may contain viruses. It is usually safe to disable macros, but if the macros are legitimate, you might lose some functionality."

I then have the options Disable Macros, Enable Macros, More Info.

(I get this everytime I open Outlook and this is happening on 2 computers that have Office 2003. I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, but it's annoying)

Back to the other thing though,enable/disable macros doesn't always pop up. On certain documents, I don't get the option to enable/disable documents and the save as is greyed out.
 
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Okay...let's start over.
What is this file??
I did a search on the web for idmword8.dot and found one hit on Google, but I cannot figure out what that file is. Why are you trying to open it? It seems to me to be a template of some sort that may be installed with some software that integrates with Word (but the 8 almost signifies Word 8.0, which is Word 97...). See
Click on the Word troubleshooting thing.
Check out the information on the Word startup folder. It sounds like you've got a file in there...

Anne Troy
 
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I'm not trying to open that file though. When I open outlook, it is trying to open that file or something.
 
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I'll have to look for that word startup folder...
 
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Yes, that file was in the word startup. Not really sure how it got there though. Thanks for clearing that part up. :)

 
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I strongly suggest NEVER saving files that way in the first place. While our PCs like us to think it's just fine, it's far better to right-click the attachment's icon and hit Save as there...
Click to expand...

I'm curious as to why that way is better...

Just trying to learn. Thanks.
 
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Sure, barcon.

Whenever you open a file, a temporary file is created on the hard drive.

When you open a file inside of an email, this is also true, but if you hit Save, it's saved in some really obscure folder that belongs to Outlook.

People forget that it's there. People have linked to other Excel files while open there, and it doesn't work. People lose their changes. I cannot tell you how many heartbroken people I've spoken to...

It's sort of like the idea of still using floppy disks to back up the only copy of a file...don't do it! :)

Anne Troy
VBA Coders, please help:
 
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Actually those "temporary" files are not so temporary. When you open an attachment from Outlook it creates real files, not pointers, under the username. I still have not been able to figure out the timing, but I have users who have "temporary" files (from opening attachments) going back 8 or 9 months. They now add up to over 6 Gb of
"temporary" files...per user.

We now disable, by policy, being able to open attachments if they are larger than 1 Mb. Or if they have a certain legal category. User have to save them deliberately, then look at them.

I mentioned this in another thread, but the more important reason, which Anne alluded to, is version control. Because Outlook creates a real file, if you make changes to a file opened via Outlook, it does NOT, repeat NOT, change the original. If you have any legal reason to be careful of content, do not open attachments in Outlook.

Gerry
 
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Thanks for that clarification, Gerry. I did helpdesk support for 5 years. You can imagine the number of users who open a file, change it, and then expect to be able to forward that file in the same email in which they received it. It's just too confusing to remember/understand the difference, hence, my rule of thumb. :)

Anne Troy
VBA Coders, please help:
 
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Hi Anne. And hence why we disable it. We had a guy writing a contract (major bucks) who attached the file to an email. Realized there was an error, and before he sent it, open the file (the attachment mind you), and made changes. Sent it.

What was sent was the Outlook version. Which was in the OLKxxxx folder under his username, on the local machine. The real original did not get changed.

There was a dispute. Bottom line though is that what was received is the "real" one, legally. The guy swore up and down that he had made the changes. And he had, but not to the official file, the one he knew about. He was, shall we say, nonplussed that when he opened his file, the changes he made were not there.

Why they made it that real files were created, rather than pointers is beyond me. I can understand being able to open a file from an attachment, but it is not good that you can save it. However, once opened into the application...what else can you do?

Just to make sure that I never do it by mistake, I wrote a normal.dot routine (one of the very very few I allow in normal.dot) that does a quick check on the path of the current file on FileSave. If it is C:\Document and Settings\username\blahblah\OLKxxxx - it will not allow me to save. A messagebox politely suggests to myself to check my version control.



Gerry
 
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