Strange SIMS and Office 2003 Issue

[Heebeejeebee]

SIMS has started to do some weird things since term started this year when running reports.

 

We are using XP and Office 2003. SIMS is (was) at June 2009 (now updated to August).

 

When running a report (any report) that uses Excel, it pops up the excel 'enable macros' box and then Excel disappears and does nothing at all sometimes for a hour or so before the report Finlay comes up. Of course, by this time the user has tried to run it several times and so their PC complains. Excel is running in the background all the time according to Task Manager.

 

This is happing on all machines and still does it after the August update has been applied and the server (and workstation) rebooted. Nothing has changed over the holidays to the server or the workstations and it was functioning correctly before.

 

Naturally I can't get down the corridor without being 'moaned' at about this but Capita seem to have no other reports of this happening so I though I'd ask the people who use it as well if anyone else is having this problem.

 

Cheers

 

HBJB

[Cache]

I have noticed this happening on 3 machines now but haven't had chance to look into it in any great detail. I did notice on the staff laptop which had this problem, using alt-tab to switch between windows seemed to trigger the report to run a little quicker, but didn't have any effect on the desktop machine I was showing someone on Thursday.

 

asaik my machine is still running reports ok without any delay, but it's been a little while since I've run a report to say that for definate.

[Heebeejeebee]

So, I got in today and it's still doing it so I though maybe it's something to do with the AV package. Apparently it's not.

 

I fear this one may be tricky to sort.

 

HBJB

[kmount]

Log on to one of the machines as the user, open Excel, turn the macro security off, close excel.

 

Run the sims report, does it come up immediately?

[andyindex]

I have the same problem with 3 machines in one of my schools, again with the same theory it was fine before the summer hols.

 

However the school has had 3 new machines and a server sine the updates in the holidays.

 

I remember some problems like this before, in my last job. It was something along the lines of making sure the user had local admin / power user rights.

 

I have tried this, disabled the macro in excel and tried a repair on office.

 

Sims will not run the report, it starts up, macro options, then closes, user is reporting the report is sometimes appearing an hour later.

 

No luck yet, any more ideas or thoughts?

 

Thanks

[Heebeejeebee]

Ooops

 

I forgot to report back that I'd found a solution. Delete the tempsimsrpt folder from your user areas and all should be fine (well, it was for me).

 

Cheers

 

HBJB

[andyindex]

Thanks for the reply, I have tried this but it did not work.

 

Removed the tempsimsrpt file, in the user and the defult user, to no avail....

 

Any other thoughts, capita's advice, wait for the next update!

[darkest_star]

We have had the same issues here and in our case we deleted the local user profile and forcing it to be re-created turned a 40min report into a less than 2min report.