Office 97 Macros wont work with Windows XP (Office 97 + XP)

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Our department has purchased new computers with Windows XPProfessional. We are still using Office 97 and not likely to upgrade in the near future. I have created Word Forms which have macros in them. The macros will not fire if the user does not have Administrator access within our network.
It is not desirable to have all users with Adminstrator access rights because I have been told that this will allow them access to change the Operating system.

Is there a way around this? Any advise will be greatly appreciated.

Kerry

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I would expect the macros to work, unless macro security is set to high.

Do they refuse to work alltogether or is it on specific lines that the macros fail?

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They do not work at all. Changing the macro security setting does not help at all.

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Just as a matter of interest:
Can you write/add new macros to a new document, and if so, will they run?
Are the macros held in a document or template that may be in a folder with restricted access?

Edited to add:
What operating system where your users running before XP?

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Leif

I havent tried to add or create new macros. Good suggestion – will try.
No there are no restrictions on folders.
Users were using Windows 98 and some 95.

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Leif

I havent tried to add or create new macros. Good suggestion – will try.
No there are no restrictions on folders.
Users were using Windows 98 and some 95.

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Just as a matter of interest:
Can you write/add new macros to a new document, and if so, will they run?
Are the macros held in a document or template that may be in a folder with restricted access?

Edited to add:
What operating system where your users running before XP?

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Do they really need admin rights on the network or just the local machine? What about power user rights on the local machine?

Joe

--Joe

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Do they really need admin rights on the network or just the local machine? What about power user rights on the local machine?

Joe

--Joe

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They do not work at all. Changing the macro security setting does not help at all.

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I would expect the macros to work, unless macro security is set to high.

Do they refuse to work alltogether or is it on specific lines that the macros fail?

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I found this piece of information…..
Macros created in versions of Word previous to Office 97 use WordBasic, not Microsoft Visual Basic. When a user opens a file containing WordBasic code in Word 2002, the code is automatically converted to Visual Basic. You should not expect to encounter problems, and the macros should run properly. However, macros created in Word 2002 won’t work for users of Word versions earlier than Word 97.

Macros created in Excel 95 use Visual Basic, but the underlying architecture of Excel was substantially changed starting with Office 97. This means that Excel 95 macros that bump into the architectural changes when opened in Excel 2002 (or the other way around) might not run properly, or at all. Be sure to have users test, and if necessary, recreate, important macros. here.

Were these macros created in Word 95 ??? I’m just grasping at straws here, because this seems more like a permissions issue than a version issue with Office and XP.

edited to add…. This is from an MS Knowledge Base article that I found here.
WORKAROUND
To work around this behavior, close the document and change the macro security level to Medium. To do this, follow these steps:
On the Tools menu, click Options and then click Macro Security.
On the Security Level tab, click to select Medium, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Exit to quit Microsoft Word.

NOTE: Though there is no warning message telling you to restart. You must quit and restart Microsoft Word for the security level change to take effect.

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I found this piece of information…..
Macros created in versions of Word previous to Office 97 use WordBasic, not Microsoft Visual Basic. When a user opens a file containing WordBasic code in Word 2002, the code is automatically converted to Visual Basic. You should not expect to encounter problems, and the macros should run properly. However, macros created in Word 2002 won’t work for users of Word versions earlier than Word 97.

Macros created in Excel 95 use Visual Basic, but the underlying architecture of Excel was substantially changed starting with Office 97. This means that Excel 95 macros that bump into the architectural changes when opened in Excel 2002 (or the other way around) might not run properly, or at all. Be sure to have users test, and if necessary, recreate, important macros. here.

Were these macros created in Word 95 ??? I’m just grasping at straws here, because this seems more like a permissions issue than a version issue with Office and XP.

edited to add…. This is from an MS Knowledge Base article that I found here.
WORKAROUND
To work around this behavior, close the document and change the macro security level to Medium. To do this, follow these steps:
On the Tools menu, click Options and then click Macro Security.
On the Security Level tab, click to select Medium, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Exit to quit Microsoft Word.

NOTE: Though there is no warning message telling you to restart. You must quit and restart Microsoft Word for the security level change to take effect.

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I’m fairly certain that Joe is on the right track: Office does not care at all about domain administrative privileges, it only cares about local privileges on the user’s machine. If you don’t want the user to have administrative privileges for all purposes on their own machines, it might be possible to use RUNAS with the Office programs work around the security restriction. I suspect there might be something on this in the some of Microsoft’s Office resource kits. (Because of the changes between Windows NT and 2000/XP, it might be hard to find a single, authoritative source that discusses both Office 97 and Windows XP, but hopefully you can piece it together.)

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You are correct. It isnt to do with Office rights it is all to do with Windows permissions.

Off of this board someone else suggested doing this:-
“apply local admin rights for all users, then use

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Sorry, no experience with that scenario. Sounds reasonable in principle, but could be complicated to sort out.

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Sorry, no experience with that scenario. Sounds reasonable in principle, but could be complicated to sort out.

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I came across <A target="_blank" HREF="https://secure.experts-exchange.com/register.jsp?query=Using+Office+97+macros+In+Windows+XP&clearTAFilter=true&srid=QWaIq51ZNPhAhla15TooMw==&redirectURL=/search.jsp?query=Using+Office+97+macros+In+Windows+XP&searchType=all&Submit.x=40&Submit.y=13

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HI Doc

I paid the money and got hte advice. It actually referred to Windows 2000 but I think the info will still be relevant. Anyway I will hand it on the the experts. Thanks for the tip.

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HI Doc

I paid the money and got hte advice. It actually referred to Windows 2000 but I think the info will still be relevant. Anyway I will hand it on the the experts. Thanks for the tip.

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You are correct. It isnt to do with Office rights it is all to do with Windows permissions.

Off of this board someone else suggested doing this:-
“apply local admin rights for all users, then use

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I’m fairly certain that Joe is on the right track: Office does not care at all about domain administrative privileges, it only cares about local privileges on the user’s machine. If you don’t want the user to have administrative privileges for all purposes on their own machines, it might be possible to use RUNAS with the Office programs work around the security restriction. I suspect there might be something on this in the some of Microsoft’s Office resource kits. (Because of the changes between Windows NT and 2000/XP, it might be hard to find a single, authoritative source that discusses both Office 97 and Windows XP, but hopefully you can piece it together.)

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