Outlook 98 / Office 97 Question

[Tech34]

I have installed Office 97 & Outlook 98 on a Windows 2000 Pro desktop with SP2 installed.
I have no problem when I am logged on as administrator.
When I log on as the user I am configuring the desktop for, I run into several problems. All of the problems appear to be permissions related because the problems go away when I make the user part of the power user group and reappear when I take them out of the power user group.

The problems are:

I receive VB script errors when trying to run the excel add-in's.

I can't start the Internet connection wizard.

Every time I try to open Outlook 98, I receive an error message. "Outlook.exe has caused an application error. The program will terminate". This logs a Dr. Watson 4097 error in the application event log.

The first two problems I have found a work around for, but the third problme has me completly stumped.

Has anyone had similar problems with Office 97 or Outlook 98? Or any suggestions?

Thank you,
Kes

 

[pbxman]

You basically told yourself what the problem is already
Office 97 and Outlook 98 are not designed to work with Windows 2000 as they do things MUCH differently. Part of that difference comes into how Office 97 handles sub-level requests into your COM+ subsystem. As a normal user, you wont have any problems using the basics per se, but get into installing COM+ add-ins, and other pieces of software to talk to the subsystem, and you get registry permission errors as well as component permission conflicts. Windows 2000 and Office 2000 are designed to work together in that respect. Adding a user to "Power users" is still "satisfactory" since those users on a 98 Machine would have had full admin rights anyway - so Win2K is one step ahead of the game there.

Basically - Windows 2000 users are not able to install MANY of the common things that Windows 98 would be able to. Also, dont forget that Office 97 has a LOT of compatibility issues with Windows 2000 as well. You should be using Office 2K on Windows 2K.

I hate to say - but you're not gonna get much mileage out of Office 97 on Windows 2000. Keep in mind that there's even Office 2002 out now! There's over 5 years gap in technology.

Just to make sure - and this may work or not. Logon as a local admin, and set the c: drive FULL control for the SYSTEM account, and make sure it propagates to all files and folders, subfolders, etc.

I say upgrade, or add them to power users
Good luck. pbxman
Systems Administrator

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