Tips and Tricks - Office XP

Office XP
Subject	Detail
Disk Driving when computer is idle	After installing Office XP you notice that every now and then the hard disk keeps driving but the computer is not doing anything. Also, when trying to defrag, the disk contents keep changing and so defrag keeps restarting. This is caused by a new document indexing system for searching documents. You can turn this feature off, and fix this problem. Open the Task Pane, click Search Options, and click No to disable this feature.
Task Pane keeps closing	When you open a document from the task pane, after running Word 2002, the task pane closes. To work around this two things need to be done. Create an AutoExec macro with the command WordBasic.EditOfficeClipboard then open the Task Pane change to the Document window and click to not show on start up. (Note: to bring up the Document Window quickly, you can add the New... button to the tool bar. Note:When installed on Windows XP, the command line also needs /n added for this to work correctly. Ie "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\WINWORD.EXE" /n
Access gives strange errors in VBA code and macros.	After upgrading or installing complete Office XP, when you run some Access database programs, some strange errors might happen. During the upgrade or install, some shortcuts don't get changed to the new Access path. Check the shortcuts, and if they point to ..\Office\.. then change the path to ..\Office10\.. (Note you can confirm by comparing the menu path access).
Unable to open Access database with Shift key.	This is the same problem as above. Check you shortcut path.
Outlook has blocked access to email attachments.	Outlook 2002 has a new feature where email attachments with certain extensions are blocked on incoming mail, and cannot be opened, saved or run. Examples of these extensions are .exe .mdb .bat etc. The full list is in the Outlook help. There are some ways to work around this, but I think the most useful and reasonable ones are the following: 1. Get the email resent, but ask the sender to ZIP the attachment. 2. Modify the registry to allow specific attachments to be received. They still won't run, so viruses cannot automatically infect your computer, but you can save the attachment. Eg I wanted to receive .mdb files, so I modified the registry to allow .mdb. Use the steps at the microsoft site www.microsoft.com and see Q290497.
Configure the File Open / File Close Places bar. Thanks to Microsoft for this hint.	In Office 2000, you have to edit the Registry to configure your places bar (Ref Q205041), but in Office XP, you can do it from within the dialogue box. While in the dialogue box, select the folder you want to appear on the dialogue box, and click on Tools, then click "Add to My Places". To remove the items you have added, Right Click on them, and choose Remove. You can also rearrange them using the Right Click options, such as Rename, Move Up, Move Down. To hide the standard fixed ones, you need to edit the Registry. Ref Microsoft Q282087.
Outlook is slow to launch, and slow to open emails that have already been downloaded.	This can be caused by the Instant Messaging. I actually found that this became set after installing Windows XP SP1, however it could be set already or at any time. In Outlook 2002, go to Tools\|Options\|Other and click to turn off Instant Messaging.
Outlook Closes Word after editing email	If you have edited a document in Word, but left it open, and if you use Word as you email editor in Outlook, after editing an email, Word may close. You can prevent this if you change the Windows in Taskbar setting. Open Word from your Word Icon, (not from Outlook) and with a document open. Click Tools\|Options\|View. Tick to untick the Windows in Taskbar. OK, and close Word.