Word as the email editor (XP/2002)

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I’ve got a quite difficult problem to explain that involves a number of my users and has just recently started even though nothing seems to have changed to explain it.

All of my users are running Office XP mixture of first edition/SP1/SP2 (problem affects users across the whole spectrum) and are using word as the email editor sending in Rich Text format. Everybody can close down word and outlook with no problems and if you check Task manager all instances of Outlook.exe and winword.exe have closed down BUT when you try to shut down the machine it says please close down all microsoft applications……….If you go into word athe document recovery pane is there with a selection of emails that were sent during the day as recovered. Now it isn’t neccessarily all messages from the day and all of these messages have actually been sent. if you then choose file – exit on word the machine will close down as normal

It’s extremely frustrating and i’m at a complete loss to explain or correct it. If i take Word off as the email editor it obviously doesn’t happen but i’d really like to keep word on if possible and as i said nothing seems to have changed to have started this problem

any help advice would be appreciated

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No helpful thoughts at the moment, but what OS are they running?

I did see something similar with the Office98 products, but at least Task Manager revealed Word.exe running. (It’s Friday arvo and half past so if you don’t hear back for a while… )

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Most people are running Win XP SP1 but i’ve also tried a few with XP without the patch and also a couple running 2000 SP4. Seems to effect the whole spectrum of these too!

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Are you saying that this happens with every single user?

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Nope, about 50% makes it even more irritating

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From what you’ve said already, it’s not a Office XP (or WinXP) version problem. Do, for example all the “victims” have Outlook open all (or virtually all) day long? Are any of the “non-victims” either heavier users of Word than Outlook – or limited users of Outlook? Is it affected by their email message formats? Does it mostly affect high-volume senders, and, if low volume senders are only occasionally impacted, what (if anything) is unusual about the low volume senders set-ups? HTH

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To be honest i can’t really see any paterns like that at all. it seems to affect really heavy users as well as light users, people that work 16 hour days and people that only work half days. Everyone is setup to send in Rich Text format using word to edit rich text emails. Sorry to be muddying the waters and not really providing much insight but i can only call it as i see it and i really can’t find a link between victims and non-victims

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Given that you do have a problem, it is to be expected in heavy users. In this context, a heavy user is someone who uses Outlook all the time they are logged on – not (necessarily) someone who works long hours. What I was looking for is whether you had a light user who still suffered from the problem. Not that I’ve checked: but I believe you should be able to identify the heavy vs light from Exchange Server – rather than having to carry out a personal census.

One other thing is that Outlook does tend to remain in memory for quite some time after it has disappeared from Task Manager – “by design”.

A further thought: do you run any non-Windows hardware onsite or have any heavy duty applications like SAP or SQL Server that might have a knock-on effect?

HTH

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I understand what you mean with regards to usage but i would say it affects usrs from both ends of the scale and everywhere in between.

We are running a couple of SQL databases in the office but i don’t think its related and they certainly haven’t changed lately.

The recent development to this is….When you go into the “window” menu of word in the list of documents are a collection of emails, it wont allow me to click on them to open them but i can close down word, try to shut down machine, receive message about microsoft apps being open go back into word and all those emails appear as individual word documents. If i close them all down then i can shut down the machine but not before. The other strange thing is on these emails the header information is missing, the email just appears to start with the opening line

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We are running a couple of SQL databases in the office but i don’t think its related…I take this to mean that the non-SQL users have problems as well as the SQL users.

Subject to that, all I can suggest is a workaround of closing down Outlook about 45 minutes before “Going Home Time”, and then reopening it 30 minutes later: to check for final messages.

Wish I could come up with more. Please post back if you find a better solution.

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We are running a couple of SQL databases in the office but i don’t think its related…I take this to mean that the non-SQL users have problems as well as the SQL users.

Subject to that, all I can suggest is a workaround of closing down Outlook about 45 minutes before “Going Home Time”, and then reopening it 30 minutes later: to check for final messages.

Wish I could come up with more. Please post back if you find a better solution.

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Just a thought, check Word Options under File Locations for where is keeps the Auto Recovery Files. Then make sure the user has full rights, esp Delete. I don’t think there is a setting in Outlook that would affect this.

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I’ve had this problem myself regularly. Usually, if I check there’s a version of outlook or word running in the background. Woody actualy discussed this a long time ago. BUT, I’ve recently discovered that if i log off first or even just use switch user, and then select close desktop, there’s no problem. Might just be my crazy machine, but you might try it..

Best,
Michael

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I’ve had this problem myself regularly. Usually, if I check there’s a version of outlook or word running in the background. Woody actualy discussed this a long time ago. BUT, I’ve recently discovered that if i log off first or even just use switch user, and then select close desktop, there’s no problem. Might just be my crazy machine, but you might try it..

Best,
Michael

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Just a thought, check Word Options under File Locations for where is keeps the Auto Recovery Files. Then make sure the user has full rights, esp Delete. I don’t think there is a setting in Outlook that would affect this.

Reply | Quote

I understand what you mean with regards to usage but i would say it affects usrs from both ends of the scale and everywhere in between.

We are running a couple of SQL databases in the office but i don’t think its related and they certainly haven’t changed lately.

The recent development to this is….When you go into the “window” menu of word in the list of documents are a collection of emails, it wont allow me to click on them to open them but i can close down word, try to shut down machine, receive message about microsoft apps being open go back into word and all those emails appear as individual word documents. If i close them all down then i can shut down the machine but not before. The other strange thing is on these emails the header information is missing, the email just appears to start with the opening line

Reply | Quote

Given that you do have a problem, it is to be expected in heavy users. In this context, a heavy user is someone who uses Outlook all the time they are logged on – not (necessarily) someone who works long hours. What I was looking for is whether you had a light user who still suffered from the problem. Not that I’ve checked: but I believe you should be able to identify the heavy vs light from Exchange Server – rather than having to carry out a personal census.

One other thing is that Outlook does tend to remain in memory for quite some time after it has disappeared from Task Manager – “by design”.

A further thought: do you run any non-Windows hardware onsite or have any heavy duty applications like SAP or SQL Server that might have a knock-on effect?

HTH

Reply | Quote

To be honest i can’t really see any paterns like that at all. it seems to affect really heavy users as well as light users, people that work 16 hour days and people that only work half days. Everyone is setup to send in Rich Text format using word to edit rich text emails. Sorry to be muddying the waters and not really providing much insight but i can only call it as i see it and i really can’t find a link between victims and non-victims

Reply | Quote

From what you’ve said already, it’s not a Office XP (or WinXP) version problem. Do, for example all the “victims” have Outlook open all (or virtually all) day long? Are any of the “non-victims” either heavier users of Word than Outlook – or limited users of Outlook? Is it affected by their email message formats? Does it mostly affect high-volume senders, and, if low volume senders are only occasionally impacted, what (if anything) is unusual about the low volume senders set-ups? HTH

Reply | Quote

Nope, about 50% makes it even more irritating

Reply | Quote

Are you saying that this happens with every single user?

Reply | Quote

Most people are running Win XP SP1 but i’ve also tried a few with XP without the patch and also a couple running 2000 SP4. Seems to effect the whole spectrum of these too!

Reply | Quote

No helpful thoughts at the moment, but what OS are they running?

I did see something similar with the Office98 products, but at least Task Manager revealed Word.exe running. (It’s Friday arvo and half past so if you don’t hear back for a while… )

Reply | Quote

Here’s some info from Microsoft Knowledge Base – searched for product Outlook and please close down all microsoft applications. Once again, I will suggest that you turn OFF Word as the E-Mail Editor.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…183&Product=out%5B/url%5D

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To be honest after an exhaustive search with no real satisfactory solution i think we’re going to have no choice except turning off word as the email editor. I wouldn’t have such a problem with this if i’d been able to find out why it happened. Obviously opinion is strong about the word email editor thing which i was unaware of before but this worked for 18 months previously with no problems.

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I find XP to be “interesting” in this. I have had a number of issues that have suddenly arisen in an environment which hasn’t changed, never to be solved. For example Excel files saved to a Novell server. For months this had worked across some 20 PC, then one by one it has failed. Some still wotk, some don’t!

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Well i guess i’ve got no choice…..

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Well i guess i’ve got no choice…..

Reply | Quote

I find XP to be “interesting” in this. I have had a number of issues that have suddenly arisen in an environment which hasn’t changed, never to be solved. For example Excel files saved to a Novell server. For months this had worked across some 20 PC, then one by one it has failed. Some still wotk, some don’t!

Reply | Quote

To be honest after an exhaustive search with no real satisfactory solution i think we’re going to have no choice except turning off word as the email editor. I wouldn’t have such a problem with this if i’d been able to find out why it happened. Obviously opinion is strong about the word email editor thing which i was unaware of before but this worked for 18 months previously with no problems.

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In Office XP and Office 2003, word as the editor works just fine. It’s much improved over Office 2000 and Office 97 (where using word as the editor was highly discouraged) and turning it off ‘just because’ is silly, especially when many users fine they can work smarter and faster with word’s features in email.

Reply | Quote

Here’s some info from Microsoft Knowledge Base – searched for product Outlook and please close down all microsoft applications. Once again, I will suggest that you turn OFF Word as the E-Mail Editor.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…183&Product=out%5B/url%5D

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Do you have an application (ActiveSync, WinFax, etc) that accesses Outlook addresses or messages on the problem machines? These programs will keep outlook open and cause the symptons you see. Also – put http://www.sunflowerhead.com/software/knockout%5B/url%5D on the problem machines and they can look in the tray to see if outlook closes properly.

As for disabling Word as the editor, if your users like using it then you’re better off solving the problem than hiding it by using the outlook editor.

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