[ms office - 2016] Users cannot open older 97 - 2003 format files

[ADMaster]

I’m having a strange issue where a few users cannot open 97 – 2003 format documents in office 2016. This just started a few weeks ago.

User 1 cannot open any .doc files, word says it is in use and gives the option to open read only copy etc. All options fail with a message about a corrupt file or wrong permissions. User is on W10 1809 and at signs of first issue was still on April CU. I’ve since updated to August CU and all the latest office updates. I’ve run an office repair, full uninstall and reinstall. If I log on documents load fine. It is not a permissions issue as I made them a local admin to test, then quickly reverted the change.

I can open the file save as a docx and they can work.

User 2 got a new PC fresh install of 1809 so has October CU and cannot open xls files. Similar tests run, I can open the files just fine logged in as admin. Same corrupt file / permissions error message.

User 3 new PC October CU etc has the same issues and also has a publisher issue. If just opening the file by double clicking, it flashes and does not open. If I open publisher and browse to the file I get an out of memory or low disk space error from publisher. Neither is true.

I’ve not tried logged in as me on the PC, but I can browse to the share and open on my PC without issue.

For users 1 and two I’ve adjusted trust center settings to allow all file types, that did not work so I reverted to defaults.

I have the same new PC with updates and don’t have these issues, there are a few other users who have new PCs that don’t have this issue either.

I’ve setup a VM with a fresh install to attempt to replicate the issue and it worked too.

The only thing I can think of is a profile issue. I’ve deleted the office folder from appdata local and roaming for user 1 and it did not solve the issue. I hesitate to delete the entire profile, but that might be a last resort.

Any ideas on what I can do to get office working again on these PCs?

 

Thanks

[ADMaster]

Deleting the profile works, but I'd rather find a better way if I could. user 1 has alot of local stuff as it is a laptop.

user 2 and user 3 have folder redirection so it wouldn't be as much trouble to delete their profiles.

I used disk2vhd on user 3 machine and have done some testing.

Deleting the profile worked.

Deleting the office folder from appdata did not work.

Deleting the office folder from registry did not work.

Deleting the entire microsoft folder from appdata did not work.

Any idea what I can do to fix this?

[ADMaster]

I deleted the profiles of all three users and the issue has reappeared for user 1 and user 3.

I'm sure it is only a matter of time before I hear from user 2.

 

Ideas?

[Steve21]

That normally shows up if you got file blocks/protected view turned on for very old file types that get upset.

 

Have you turned up the security in regards to those?

 

As a very temp fix (as in one file), turn off protected view mode (as in trust center) and try to open a file again, does it work?

 

Also, what do you have ticked under file blocks for older files?

 

Steve

[ADMaster]

I deleted her profile again and was going to call it fixed, but then it stopped working again.

After a bit of testing it quits after a log off and log on of the users actual machine. The VM backup I took to test with, the issue appears to stay fixed.

The trust center is the first place I looked, I've attached a screen shot of settings, are these what you're asking about?

I've uninstalled office and reinstalled with no updates. I've not removed any windows updates yet, but that is likely the next step. Although I'd like to rule that out as logging on as admin on her machine, and my own machine the files work fine.

 

[ADMaster]

After reimage the user gets the same behavior. Works after the first logon, but subsequent logons they cannot open 97-2003 format word / excel and cannot open publisher files.

 

These are all identical machines about a dozen in service at the moment. The first half were setup a month ago with no complaints. The second half were setup last week. The middle 2 have issues, the first and last 2 also have no problems. This is very strange.

To clarify that is the order in which they were setup, not physical location. The issues are the same if the PC is on their desk or mine.

[ADMaster]

I’ve finally been able to reproduce and fix the issue on a test machine.

The short answer is the temp folder was missing from the user’s profile. Creating the folder solved the issue, deleting the folder brought the issue back.

I moved a test user into the same OU and put it in all the same securely groups, I was able to reproduce the issue on the user’s machine and a VM.

I then moved the test user to a new OU and started applying GPOS one at a time until failure. I have a scripts GPO where one is to clean up the temp files. The GPO hasn’t been modified since 2016 and this particular script since 2014.

At the start of the school year, I had issues with student computers and their temp directories. One app would not open if it was missing. I wrote a script to act as an app launcher, check for temp folder, if not exist create it then launch the app.

I wasn’t sure why their temp folders with missing, but just fixed it.

My script was deleting the temp folder on logoff. Windows would create the temp folder at logon for 1709 and previous, 1809 does not.

I’ve added a create temp dir line to the script so hopefully this is properly fixed now.