Word 2007 Templates on network drive

[Carol Chisholm]

I have my macro enabled templates stored on a network drive, mapped
from my various computers.

When I try to use them in Word 2007, I run into all sorts of problems.

They loose their macro storage space, they give me messages like
"EOLALPHABETICARABIC..."
Was this information helpful? when trying to save the NORMAL.DOTM.

I find that if I move them to a local drive, and change my file
locations back to the local drive, all works much as expected.

Can someone provide me with some clarification about why network
drives are so different now (I'm working on a 2GB cables network
connection), and how I can perhaps get this convenient functionality
back.

PS I don't want a roaming profile.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Carol:

The "difference" is in how file locking is applied to network files.

On the local file system, typically the workstation employs "Simple File
Sharing" where a file is either locked or it isn't.

On the network, files can be opened in multiple "access modes", and by
multiple users. Word will always attempt to open each file "Read/Write"
(i.e. In Edit mode). If you open a file "Read Only", Word normally applies
an Edit lock anyway, and then releases the file by discarding the changes.
It does this to ensure that it gets an Exclusive Read.

However, I am afraid that Word 2007 clearly says "on the box" that it is a
"Beta" version. "Beta" means they know various parts of it are broken.

Looks like you found one.

How about you try Synchronising the templates to a local folder? Since I
assume your network templates don't change very frequently, it should be
sufficient to schedule the template folder to synch with the network on
shutdown/log-off each day to keep them up-to-date and local.

Hope this helps

I have my macro enabled templates stored on a network drive, mapped
from my various computers.

When I try to use them in Word 2007, I run into all sorts of problems.

They loose their macro storage space, they give me messages like
"EOLALPHABETICARABIC..."
Was this information helpful? when trying to save the NORMAL.DOTM.

I find that if I move them to a local drive, and change my file
locations back to the local drive, all works much as expected.

Can someone provide me with some clarification about why network
drives are so different now (I'm working on a 2GB cables network
connection), and how I can perhaps get this convenient functionality
back.

PS I don't want a roaming profile.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Carol Chisholm]

Oh well I'll report it. I thought it might be new functionality to
encourage us to use Sharepoint to mange everything for us.

It's just more convenient to use the server with shadow copies and
backups when working in unstable environments.

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Is the location of the templates on the network drive trusted? If not,
you might run into some macro issues. You can add the location to your
trusted locations in Word Options, Trust Center, Trust Center Settings,
Trusted Locations. Note that you need to enable remote locations as
trusted locations first on that page before you can add a remote one.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Carol,

I'm interested in knowing a little more about the issue you are
encountering. What file location are you using to point to your
templates? Is it the User Templates location or Workgroup templates?

What do you mean by 'lose their macro storage space'? Do you mean they
revert to templates with a *.dotx extension?

Also, are you being prompted to save Normal.dotm each time you exit
Word?

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Carol Chisholm]

I do have the network drive as a trusted location.

 

[Carol Chisholm]

Hi Beth,

I started with a new build of the computer in question (Vista 5384)
with the MSDN Office 2007 beta.

I then added my network drive to the trusted locations and changed
both the user and workgroup template file locations to the appropriate
network drive locations.

I deleted the local normal.dotm file which got created on my local
drive and re-started office.

The macro in question is an autonew macros which prompts the user to
choose the directory to save the new file in, and then generates a
sequential date-based (yymmddxx.docm) name for the file. It then add
selected bits of the file path and name as a reference in the footer
of the document.

The resulting file should be save as a macro enabled document.

This all works if I have the templates in the default location.
C:\Users\carol.SMALLDOM\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

I change the user templates to U:\templates and the workgroup
templates to U:\template\_invoice (both on the same server with U:\
and subfolders as trusted locations).

I then open an invoice template and get a Microsoft Visual Basic "file
not found" error, with only OK or HELP as options.

I choose OK and a new document is created, but not saved, and I get a
Microsoft Office Word error: "Could not open macro storage" with OK or
HELP.

I choose OK again, and get to my document onscreen without the footer
information, not saved and with the default name. I have some further
macros in the document for preparing the invoice, these show in the
Tools - Macros - Macro list but do not actually exist, I cannot run,
step or edit them.

When I exit Word I sometimes get a prompt to save the normal template
and sometimes gobbledygook about "EOLALPHABETICARABIC"

I can't reproduce the gobbledygook at the moment.

Carol

 

[Beth Melton]

Off-hand it doesn't sound a like a Word 2007 bug but rather an error
in your VBA Project. I'm wondering if you have a reference in your
Project to one of your templates but the reference is pointing the old
template location rather than the new on the network drive. Open the
VBA Project and check Tools/References to see if this is the case.

Regarding your "gobbledygook about "EOLALPHABETICARABIC"" I seem to
recall other reports of this and recreating Normal.dotm resolved the
issue.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Patrick Schmid]

I started with a new build of the computer in question (Vista 5384)

with the MSDN Office 2007 beta.

Vista? Let me just blame Vista for the issue.
Can you repro this in XP?

Patrick Schmid

 

[Carol Chisholm]

I think you may be right about the EOLALPHABETICARABIC and re-creating
normal.dotm.

However since the project works fine on the local drive and not on a
network drive, I have to suspect Word.

 

[Beth Melton]

Did you check Project/References as I suggested?

I suspect each template's AutoNew macro is calling a shared procedure
for saving the document which is located in another template. If each
template's AutoNew macro performs the same initial actions then more
than likely this is the case.

Since the macro is in another template, one way to share it is to
create a reference to the template. IOW, there is a link established
between the templates.

So...if you have a reference pointing to a template on your local
drive and if that template is moved to another drive, such as your
network drive, then the "file will not be found" and Word will be
unable to "open the macro storage" to run the macro.

Of course everything will work fine if the templates are on your local
drive and back in their original location - that's where they are
currently expected to be located.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/