Post by Chris GreenPost by Jonathan WestPost by Chris GreenI've Googled all the *.word.* archives as well as searching the MVPs
site
Post by Jonathan WestPost by Chris Greenwithout luck.
Scenario: Shortcut installed in the Office startup folder (not the startup
folder in the user's profile).
That's one possible problem. try deleting and recreating the shortcut. A
shortcut is not how I would do this, but each to his own.
Thanks for your thoughts, Jonathon.
I'll try if we run into it again. Loading the template by selecting its
check box in the Templates and Addins dialog seems to work and it keeps
loading on startup.
Post by Jonathan WestPost by Chris GreenThe shortcut points to a template on a
network share.
And that is another possible problem. If there's been any change in the
server (e.g. new path, domain, machine name, share name or IP address,
this
Post by Jonathan Westcan mees things up real quick.
We experienced this on only one machine.
That doesn't necessarily rule out the network as a contributory factor, not
so much as a result of the server changing, but of something getting messed
up in the registry on the local PC regarding network mapping. Goodness only
knows what the problem might be though.
Post by Chris GreenPost by Jonathan WestPost by Chris GreenThe network share is set up as the user's workgroup folder
Ewww. So users can attempt to open the template while having no idea what
they are doing. Not really to be recommended
I'm not sure what the concern is. They can create a document based on the
template (and get multiple instances of the custom UI for their trouble).
But, they cannot change the template itself unless they save it elsewhere.
The folder is read-only except to template admin folk.
Please enlighten me.
If I understand you correctly, the template is intended only to be loaded as
an add-in, and not to have dovuments based on it. Therefore it is not
desirable for it to appear in the File New dialog as a result of the
Workgroup Folder path being mapped to the same folder.
If you really must have the add-in on a network share, it would be better to
change the Startup path so it points to the network share. This would still
cause the template to be in a folder regarded as a trusted installation
location.
Post by Chris GreenPost by Jonathan WestReplacing the shortcut might work. But overall I would strongly recommend
that you think about a different template distribution strategy, where you
put templates & add-ins into each user's local User Templates folder (for
templates) or Startup folder (for add-ins). You will avoid all kinds of
network interop problem that way.
Agreed. I did recommend installing locally and updating with a logon script.
Given that IT resources were an issue, I looked at other methods of
dynamically updating the add-in. Those suggestions were not taken up. After
bouncing around different requirements, this is the implementation we have.
I strongly advise against placing templates at network locations, for a
whole variety of reasons.
1. If the network or server goes down, quite enough of the organisation's
operations are likely to grind to a halt without unnecessarily adding
word-processing to the list by making templates unavailable for use.
2. Storing templates & add-ins locally means that users with laptops don't
need a different setup. Their templates are stored locally in just the same
way as for permanently connected desktop machines, and they can receive
updates next time they connect to the network.
3. Templates and add-ins stored locally usually load faster, reducing
startup time and improving response times for Word.
4. Templates and add-ins stored locally don't load the network with
avoidable traffic, improving performance for other applications that must
use the network.
5. Editing and updating a template at a network location is much easier if
you don't have to break everyone's lock on the file in order to replace a
template with an updated version.
6. When you open a document, if its attached network template is
unavailable, you can suffer very long delays (2 minutes or more) before the
document finally appears on screen. This is because Windows can take a long
time before finally deciding that no reply is going to come from the network
location that Word requests. If the attached template location is on a local
drive, the existence of the template can be checked very quickly, and so the
document opens immediately even if the template is not available. Microsoft
is aware of this problem, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830561.
Microsoft does have an operating system fix for the problem, but if you
email documents to people outside your organisation, you cannot assume that
they will have the fix installed.
--
Regards
Jonathan West - Word MVP
www.intelligentdocuments.co.uk
Please reply to the newsgroup
Keep your VBA code safe, sign the ClassicVB petition www.classicvb.org