This feature is not currently installed (2003 SP2)

Topic

New Reply

On a recently, 3-4 weeks, installed Office 2003 suite I find the following in Excel and Word (I have not checked other programs):

When I start either of the two programs and select Ctrl-O, File – Open, or via the Toolbar I get the Open dialog box. To the left there are the five standard shortcuts in a pane (don’t remember its English name); My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Documents, My Computer and My Network Places. If I click any of them (well not Network Places since I’m not using it) I get the following well known dialog:

This feature is not currently installed. Would you like to install it now?

If I click No, the Open dialog box moves on to the desired destination, i.e. the one I clicked. After that the shortcuts work during the session, until I close the program.

There is another related oddity; I have a vague memory that I got the same dialog during the initial first runs of Excel when doing a slightly different operation in the Open dialog: I right-clicked on a folder in the Open dialog, and selected the top option in bold, it’s in Swedish but it means Select. Obviously the same as double-clicking the folder.

I may be wrong about that, since I don’t get the dialog about features not installed now, when right-clicking, BUT nothing happens when I right-click a folder and choose Select. It doesn’t matter if I try before using left pane shortcuts, and answering No to the question (which make the shortcuts work), or if I try to right-click a folder after using the shortcuts. Yes this is a smaller problem since double-clicking a folder does what right-clicking & Select should do.

(Doing the same in WinExplorer et al; right-click & Select, works perfectly.)

Finally, the obvious answer would be: answer Yes when you get the dialog about not installed features, to get rid of it.

Yes, but I would like to know what’s wrong or missing. Since installation I have changed 2 settings:
Show Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows
Always show full menus
That’s the first thing I do on any Office installation, since they introduced it years ago. I haven’t even changed the number in Recently used file list, let alone messing with add-ins, so it’s a really virgin Office installation.

As to features installed, done as Custom:

• Excel, everything.
• Word, everything but Wordperfect help.
• PP, probably everything maybe some extra template isn’t there.
• Access, everything, but examples.
  [/list]Then when we comes to general Office tools etc. No SharePoint or WebFolders etc.

  So I think most of what should be there, is there. Security and stability wise, well the latest updates to SP2 are there.

Reply | Quote

Replies

Have you actually tried clicking Yes in the dialog? If it solves the problem (not just for the current session, but permanently), I’d let things be – life is too short to worry about things like this.

A possible cause of the problem is interference by left-over traces of previous Office installations. Trying to get rid of these can be a painful process…

Reply | Quote

Hi Hans,
Thanks for reply. No, I hadn’t clicked Yes, waited for you to hold my hand.

And yes, you are right, even though I mentioned it was a recent installation, there was an Office there before. But I did the normal uninstall, with some minor cleaning and rebooting, removing left over folders etc., before installing, since it did go some day between uninstall and install. But as you say, traces could be left (indeed I’m sure there are traces, but the minor ones in the registry get overwritten later on, most of the time).

Funny the installation put the MSOCache (since I answered yes to leave it) on my biggest partition used for my own data. The C partition has some 75 % free, around 15 GB, but those 290-300 MB cache went to my data partition. Ah, well no problem. I think I could have used some switch at install time to direct the cache somewhere else, maybe.

I now checked the Office setup in Add and Remove Programs (change); well, more or less it was the features I mentioned before.

Rebooted, started Excel, and at the dialog clicked Yes. As usual – though I always install the things I need, not much for 1st use – the configuration dialog came, said something about config. Excel and went away. The Open dialog then moved on to destination. As expected it now works every time, and in Word.

Though, right-click & Select folder still do not work. If I do it twice it works, and double-clicking a folder works as mentioned before.

For anyone wondering why not use double-click always; well, sometimes you are moving into folders with a lot of executables or other files and you don’t want to tripple-click by mistake , thus running some file. Yep, I know there are plenty of other ways to navigate, a simple shift-Tab and your in the folder pane, move with arrows and press Enter. Normally I just double-click.

I afterwards looked again at Office Setup, what do I know, maybe it was the Hosted Webs feature, don’t remember chosing it at install time. A search doesn’t reveal much but some updated Excel11.pip, though the MS SharedWeb Folders and OFFICE11 folders are there among changed.

“life is too short to worry about things like this” Yep, don’t have to remind me that life is to short.

Reply | Quote

I did a quick check on another Office 2003 installation, not at home, and I saw the same: if right-clicking a folder in the Open dialog box and choosing Select (or what it’s called in English OS), nothing happens.

Do not know why it does not work.

Reply | Quote

What happens if you try the same in the Open dialog in a non-Office application, for example in Notepad or Paint?

Reply | Quote

Sorry, for my earlier little longer posts, but I mentioned no problems otherwise, in the first post 677,617, maybe could have been more clearly mentioned:
[indent]

---

(Doing the same in WinExplorer et al; right-click & Select, works perfectly.)

---

[/indent]
So, no problem in Notepad, Paint, Adobe Reader et al.

The context menu, right-clicking in the Open dialog in the Office programs, is Windows, but everything else in the Open dialog is guided by Office settings. So I don’t know if it’s some sort of conflict.

Office suite: English
OS: Swedish

Reply | Quote

Hi Argus,

I had seen that remark, but I wasn’t sure whether it applied to the Open dialog in other applications. Anyway, thanks for the clarification.
I’ve tried to search Google and the newsgroups, but I couldn’t find anything relevant – I don’t seem to be able to come up with search terms that are restrictive enough.

Reply | Quote

Hans,
I’m sure you don’t miss anything. And yes, I didn’t mention other Open dialogs explicitly.

Nah, I find a lot about how to modify My Places bar (that’s the name I didn’t recall in the first post), but this is, since first problem is solved, about inside the file and folder area in the Open dialog, and the right click context menu.

And as always I find people asking other questions I could have answered.

Reply | Quote

I have also tried this:

• Temporarily disable the resident AV component and test with let’s say Excel’s Open dialog, and right-click a folder. This since the AV software is there in the background. Also tested with the AV shell extension disabled (the extension makes it possible to scan individual files & folders), since it is there among the options on the right click context menu when I try to select a folder. It did not help.
• Have checked with Process Monitor (MS/Sysinternals). But even if I set up small test with only Registry activity captured, and have Excel’s Open dialog ready, and start the capture before a quick switch to Excel and the right click test, it generate a lot of captured activity, and I can’t really interpret all of it.
  [/list]

Reply | Quote

I tried the latter too, although in Excel 2002 instead of 2003, and right-clicking a folder and clicking Select appears to involve exclusively or almost exclusively Windows-level registry keys, I didn’t notice specific Office keys being read. No idea what to make of this…

Reply | Quote

Let me get it straight. The problem now is NOT with the “My Places” bar, it is in the Open dialog box. And if you right-click a folder and chose Select, the folder does not open up. You have to do that twice.

I believe that is by design — or actually by choice. That is exactly how my Open dialog box works. This is related to the settings in Folder Options. If it is set to “Double click to open an item”, then you have to select twice. I’ll bet that is the behavior you are witnessing.

Reply | Quote

I think you have mis-understood here.

In the Open dialog box, you right click on a folder, and choose Select – nothing happens. Then right click on the same folder a second time and choose Select and the Open dialog box displays the contents of that folder, as it should have done the first time.

See the discussion here.

StuartR

Reply | Quote

I don’t think that is correct. The Folder Options specifically states that you need to DOUBLE-CLICK (i.e, double select) to OPEN an object.

The first “Select” is the ‘first click’ event. The second “Select” is the second ‘click event’. It takes two ‘click events’ to open a folder — if that is how you have your folder options set. I’ll test it out now…
___________

And… I found this to be correct. If you select the Single Click option and leave the radio button on “Underline”, you get lines under each object. Now the folders open with a single “Select” or ‘click event’.

So… then Open Dialog box is responding correctly based on how you personally have set up your Folder Options. Two “Selects” = Two “clicks”. There is no way around this.

Reply | Quote

I think that you are confusing Right-Clicks and Left-Clicks.

The setting you are talking about controls the behaviour of left clicks even with that set to “double click to open” I can right click in Windows Explorer and select Open without needing to do the whole thing twice.

StuartR

Reply | Quote

Oh, sorry — I see the confusion! YES, if you right-click and choose OPEN, the folder will OPEN. However OPEN is NOT the same as SELECT. In the Open Dialog Box, if you choose OPEN, the folder will open. But, if you choose SELECT, you have to do it twice.

And to highlight what Argus said: “Though, right-click & *Select* folder still do not work. If I do it twice it works, and double-clicking a folder works as mentioned before.”

“Select” is equivalent to a ‘click event’. “Open” is a Context Menu Shell Command option controlled in the HKCR section of the registry:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellopencommand%SystemRoot%Explorer.exe /idlist,%I,%L

Reply | Quote

There is one unique difference between the SECOND right-click “Select” and the SECOND left-click event. But the first right-click “Select” and the single left-click seemed to be equivalent.

The difference is that the SECOND right-click “Select” takes you to the Shell Command “Open” no matter how long the delay is between the first and second click event. This is not the case for the second left-click event. If the two left-clicks are in close temporal proximity, the Shell Command for “Open” is triggered. If they are not ‘close’ (as determined by the mouse settings), the “Rename” function is triggered instead.

Now, it does not matter how the FIRST click event is triggered — either by a single left-click or a right-click and “Select”. If you delay the second click event, then the triggered function is determined by the source of the second click event — regardless of the source of the first recorded click event.

File under “Esoteric Shell Operations”…

Reply | Quote

In Office XP SP3, the first right-click and Select on a subfolder in the Open dialog will open the subfolder.

(My Windows is set to “single-click to select, double-click to open)

Reply | Quote

Hans,
It didn’t work, it became two threads …

Reply | Quote

I’ll post in any thread you like… I have WinXPPro-sp2 with Office2003 and IE7.

Everything I posted was tested over and over again with the Word and Excel Open dialog boxes. However, you are correct — i did not test it on the Notepad Open Dialog box!!!

Well, Notepad does exactly as you said: “Select” functions as same as “Open”. But, Word and Excel do not work that way — and I assumed testing those was enough! Word and Excel function how I describe — Select = Click.

So, I am left with no great explanation — and certainly no solution. It must be related to SOME update or version — be it Office or IE or the OS itself.

And… I highly recommend you guys TRY THE FOLDER OPTIONS as I described above. If you are sure it is not related, just give it a try!

And, on my computer — “Select” is bold in the Open dialog box for Excel, Word, and Notepad. If Open and Select are to both have the *same* function, then having both of them is redundant. Which appears to be how MS wanted it — at least for Office! There is really no reason to have “Select” for folders if “Open” is meant to be the default option.
____

Argus, I hope you find a solution to you problem. I guess I have little to offer you, so I am out of this thread….

Reply | Quote

I tested on my home PC with Office XP (aka 2002)! When I try it on my work PC which has Office 2003 SP3, I see the behavior reported by Argus, StuartR and you.

In summary:
– In most or all applications other than Office apps, and also in Office XP apps: right-click + Select = Open.
– In Office 2003 apps: right-click + Select = Select the first time, Open after that.

So the Office 2003 Open dialog is the exception.

Reply | Quote

If I’m following all this correctly, Office 2007 acts the same way as Office 2003.

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

Hi,
Well, I started another, now locked, since the discussion moved on in this thread (even though under the old Subject).

I agree with you that changing the Folder options to “Single-Click to open an item (point to select)” has an effect, though not exactly as desired (at least not on my machine).

If I do that change to single-click (underline consistent with browser), start Excel, bring up Open dialog, and right-click a folder and clicks Select, nothing happens. But if I start over, goes to the Open dialog, notices that the prompt is in the File name dropdownbox, left-clicks on an empty space in the File and Folder area, then point on a folder (it gets selected), right-click and click Select, it works.

But for this to work, on my PC, I have to move the prompt (focus) from the File name dropdown to the File and Folder area with a left-click in this, latter, area. From then on it works. It’s not exactly “saving clicks”, though the single-click setting implies that.

“I hope you find a solution to you problem.”

Thanks. Not a big problem, as you can guess. But, still it’s an annoyance. The MS Office people have many times made their own paths, sometimes confusing since the OS and program suite are made in the same company, but I have no clue what’s causing this.

Reply | Quote

In the mid 1990s Microsoft negotiated with the US government and signed a consent decree which supposedly established a ‘wall’ between the OS developers and the application developers. This was done so that theoretically the application developers within Microsoft would not have a specific advantage over third party developers when it came to API access and documentation. So, even though Office & Windows come from the same company the application side does not necessarily follow the OS side’s lead in UI standards and practices.

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

Hi Joe,

Yes, I remember that, especially now that you remind me. That small part of my post wasn’t, well, all that clever. I have been using what came to be the Office programs since quite early; Excel 2.0 etc. But I was thinking of things like the new Ribbon ™ and the Microsoft Office Button ™ etc. in the latest incarnation, and probably a lot of other things in older Office suites that I at the moment can’t recall, but gives me that feeling.

Let’s put it the other way around; there are a lot of third party developers that DO follow the OS in UI standards and practices, well MS sets trends in both the OS and Office programs so eventually we will see these Ribbons. We do already see these back and forward arrows (taken from all kinds of browsers, true, but introduced in other programs like Media Player, Defender et al by MS).

It could be that this behaviour in the Open dialog is introduced in an update to Office 2003 & 2007, as I said I don’t know.

Thanks for your report on the status in Office 2007.

Reply | Quote

We have had these “Backward and Forward” arrows in the Family Research programs for a long time. It really helps when browsing a family tree

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

Hi Dave,
Sometimes I just know I’m going to get a comment whatever I write.

OFF TOPIC
Yep, in that kind of program it also make sense, since, as you said “It really helps when browsing a family tree”. I have also done some research but I use a Swedish program, and I’m using the “Backward and Forward” arrows all the time, would be even better (for me) if I could use the Backward and Forward buttons on my mouse. Lazy as I am. It’s possible they have been there for a long time, since genealogy programs also have been around for a long time, but I guess the browse function looked a little different 20-30 years ago before the web browsers.

But still, in UI design, sometimes those “Backward and Forward” arrows doesn’t work with me and how I think. They should only be there if they can be to some great help, and no confusion. An example: I don’t have MS Defender installed, but used it through the Beta. Let’s say you start such a program, look at different settings, then decide to change one setting. You click Apply, and move on. With the use of the superfluous “Backward and Forward” arrows you can now navigate back to the settings page and even further back. Yes, the setting you changed is there since you clicked Apply. But for me it doesn’t feel right to browse every “page” / pane, I have looked at in for example a security program. Especially not a settings “page”.

But, yes, I agree with you, in for instance a Family Research program it is great.

Reply | Quote

I don’t know what you are trying to straight.

It hasn’t been mentioned that the second problem was related to My places bar, both Hans and I agreed on that. Though, in first post I said I had a related problem in the Open dialog, the one we’re now discussing.

In post 678,108 I said, related to searching help: “I find a lot about how to modify My Places bar (that’s the name I didn’t recall in the first post), but this is, since first problem is solved, about inside the file and folder area in the Open dialog, and the right click context menu.”

I think you are confusing some things. It does not have anything to do with the settings in Folder Options dialog. Since it should work out of the box, and indeed does in other applications.

The first option when you right-click a folder (or file for that matter) in the Open dialog is in bold. All over Windows this means that this is the action that will be carried out IF YOU DOUBLE-CLICK. Thus, right-clicking and selecting Select should be the same as double-clicking, i.e. enough.

The above (my mention of double-click) is described under the assumption of default settings in Folder Options dialog, i.e. “Double-click to open an item (single-click to select)”.

I have default settings (have never liked the IE-fication of the OS).

With your explanation that doing right-click twice is needed with these settings (default), why would it work as I expect in other Open dialogs (Notepad et al) as mentioned above in this thread?

And all this about OPEN; of course OPEN is not the same as SELECT, since Select is the equivalent of selecting outside of right-click menu, in most cases double-clicking. All other options on the right-click context menu behaves, and is of no interest.

So, as I said before, can you explain: why would it work as I expect (select is the equivalent of double-click) in other Open dialogs (Notepad et al) as mentioned above in this thread?

Reply | Quote