Microsoft File Validation Add in Bug

[sniffingmoose]

Hello

 

I came into the school this morning without a care in the world and then... Straight in the door to frustrated users breathing down my neck saying "I cannot open my Excel files, it worked last week WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY COMPUTER!!"

 

After spending 2 hours trying to troubleshoot this I found out that the problem was due to update released by microsoft recently. Here are the symptoms :-

 

When a user trys to open any Excel 2003 document located in a mapped drive folder on the server, the file opens very slowly, taking up to 30 minutes before it opens! If I copy the same file to the local PC, it opens immediately. If I open the file over the network using the Excel "Open and Repair" option, it opens immediately. It seems worse when an excel file has a chart in it. Small files are not so much of a problem but you do notice slower performance.

 

Well folks its due to the update "Microsoft Office File Validation Add-in" installed on our XP Workstations. It was only an issue for Office 2003 installations, but I saw the problem with both Word and Excel. After removing this update in the add and remove programs, everything returned to normal. Can you believe that! Microsoft issueing buggy software. It had me on the run for 2 hours!

 

Please note - In the the "Add/Remove programs" menu it isn't listed by its KB (2501584) number but rather as though it were a stand-alone application labeled as "Microsoft Office File Validation Add-in".

 

So remove the dam thing and relax!

 

I wonder if Microsoft is going to fix this issue as I think it only effects Office 2003, or will it be upgrade everyone to the current version of Office.

 

 

Chris Thomas

Dorrington Primary School

[mavhc]

Thanks for that, I'd just come across it in WSUS and approved it the day before, nice of them to test stuff

[Ragey]

I came across this after it had been installed on 50% of the workstations at our school. It looks like we'll be manually removing it during the summer as Microsoft don't seem to be in a rush to fix it.

[gavins38]

Blast! I've just installed this on one of office PCs here at the secretary was already having issues with Outlook in the first place. Thanks for the heads up, you've already saved me a ton of time looking for a solution.