Office 97 - Documents that may need to be read and Updates that may be required

Overview
The term "shrink-wrapped application" refers to any off-the-shelf, packaged software program designed to enable users to carry out a specific task or function. Word processors, spreadsheets, graphics programs and database managers are examples of applications.

The Year 2000 challenge may cause date problems and miscalculations to occur in your application software. Some applications have internal calendars that may miscalculate the leap year; others may force a two-digit date.

Microsoft's compliant applications that store and manipulate dates do so consistent with four digits. In addition, these products do not use any special date codes and will automatically calculate the Year 2000 as a leap year.

Whilst Office97 was broadly stated as Year2000 compliant, various issues regarding the handling of dates and other issues regarding general usage are discovered from time to time.

 

Which Office97 version do you have ?

You should run: sr2chk.exe to determine what your current version is. Another method is to run any Office97 application, say Word97 and check the product name under Help, About <application name>; this will either just mention the application name (Office97 base version) or give the application name followed by SR-1 or SR-2.

PC Relief clients will find this file and all other updates together with all documentation on their CD. Other users should download this file from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k

 

IMPORTANT NOTE:

The updates to fix date bugs and give all the other new fixes and improvements, require that your system is in good working order in both hardware and software terms. Faulty devices, badly setup devices, Hard Drive problems or existing corrupted software may lead to unexpected results. Check out, or have your system checked out BEFORE using these updates.

 

The Base Version

The original Office 97 hereinafter called the 'base edition', was thought to be fully compliant. Subsequent to it's release a bug was found when using dates in Word97 tables, the solution for this, other non-2000 related issues and various improvements to office suit were included in the next release of Office97, suffixed with SR-1, thus 'Office 97 SR-1'. (See Next paragraph).

 

Note for Office97 Pirate Copy Users:

Microsoft can and will check out your Product Ids/Key Numbers whilst you are on-line. You are advise to remove all pirated software and purchase legal copies of any pirated software.

 

Version SR-1 - (Time taken to update: 10-30mins)

Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1) is also an update to Office 97 that makes it easier for users of different versions of Office to share files with one another. The Office 97 SR-1 Patch combines Office 97 product updates into one consolidated download. Of particular interest to Office 97 users, Office 97 SR-1 includes the Microsoft Word 6.0/95 Binary Converter for Word 97, which enables Word 97 users to save files in the Word 6.0/95 native file format. Office 97 SR-1 also provides enhanced support for POP3 and SMTP Internet e-mail in the Outlook™ 97 messaging and collaboration. E-mail Forms Fix Utility offers improved performance in handling electronic forms. Support for Intel's MMX technology in OfficeArt improves rendering performance of JPEG files

If your version of Office97 is the base version, then you should use the SR-1 update: sr1off97.exe which will convert your base version to the SR-1 version. This file is 8.47MB in size and is thus too large to accompany these Year200 documents if you are reading this on-line.

For PC Relief existing clients these documents and all update files including the above, are issued on their CD.

For all other users the updates must be downloaded from Microsoft and can be found via http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k but please read on so that you know which updates may be needed and how/when to use them.

Users may have problems using this update if Office97 has been loaded on to their PCs more than once. After updating one or more of the office applications e.g: Word97 may not run reporting ' incorrect …… . dll loaded '. If you get such problems then you will need to uninstall Office97, removing all components, reinstall your base version and then run the update again. If this still does not work you will need to install the full CD version of Office97 SR-1. PC Relief clients should contact me in such cases. All other users should purchase the 'registered' CD from a reliable source.

DURING the updating procedure you will be asked to ensure that no Office97 applications are running eg: Word97, Excel97 etc. It would also be advisable to end the tasks for Office Shortcut Bar, Office Startup (OSA) and FindFast. You can do this at the time you receive the message, by pressing Alt+Ctrl+Del. Select the element then click the 'End Task' button. Repeat this until the elements mentioned have been removed. Do it again a final time to ensure none remain and if so click the 'Cancel Button'.

AFTER updating you the system will be rebooted. Check that all your Office97 programs start up. During this you can check the Help, About in any Office97 application to see that SR-1 has been added to the product name.

 

 

Post SR-1 - XLRecalc Patch - (Time to update: 1 - 5 mins)

Some time after the release of Version SR-1, a calculation problem was found in Excel97 and a patch (bug fix) was issued to overcome this. Although not related to Year 2000 problems such a problem needs to be fixed. The problem arises where 18 formulas exist on a row with each referencing the formula to the left and one referencing a cell in the row above AND where the row is divisible by 16 + 1 (e.g: row 33). This patch name was xl8patch.exe a file that runs, extracts (decompresses compressed files) and then runs a setup program that culminates in fixing the problem. Note: YOU MUST HAVE SR-1 ON YOUR SYSTEM BEFORE USING THIS PATCH. Again PC Relief clients will find this on their CD, other users should download this from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k

 

Run the xl8patchg.exe program by clicking the file. When completed you might like to Start, Shutdown, Restart your computer to ensure that the system and Registry have accepted the change - although this is not strictly necessary.

After reboot, check that all your Office97 applications can start up.

 

Update to Version SR-2 - (Time to update: 5 - 10mins)

Office 97 Service Release 2 (SR-2) is a update to Office 97 that delivers all of the product fixes developed since the release of Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1).

What you need to install Office 97 SR-2

To install Office 97 SR-2, you must already have Office 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1) installed on your computer. To determine whether Office 97 SR-1 is properly installed on your computer, run sr2chk.exe.

Another method is to run any Office97 application, say Word97 and check the product name under Help, About <application name>; this will either just mention the application name (Office97 base version) or give the application name followed by SR-1 or SR-2.

PC Relief clients will find this file and all other updates together with all documentation on their CD. Other users should download this file from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k

 

BEFORE using the SR-2 update ensure that you have your Product ID at hand. You will need this to complete the update. If you have lost or miss-placed this, you will find it under Help, About in any Office97 application.

DURING the updating procedure you will be asked to ensure that no Office97 applications are running eg: Word97, Excel97 etc. It would also be advisable to end the tasks for Office Shortcut Bar, Office Startup (OSA) and FindFast. You can do this at the time you receive the message, by pressing Alt+Ctrl+Del. Select the element then click the 'End Task' button. Repeat this until the elements mentioned have been removed. Do it again a final time to ensure none remain and if so click the 'Cancel Button'.

AFTER the system will reboot. Check that all your Office97 programs start up. During this you can check the Help, About in any Office97 application to see that SR-2 has been added to the product name.

 

 

Date problem in Outlook - (Time to update: 5 - 10mins)

Once SR-2 has been installed, the next fix can be carried out which is a date problem when importing/exporting email/messages in Outlook97. This patch name is o97dtfix.exe

When this runs it extracts two dll files which must replace existing files on your PC of the same name. These files should be in your Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Convert. These files are: transmgr.dll and rm.dll

You will need to find the original files and rename them to transmgr.old and rm.old then copy the new version to the same folder

Run the o97dtfix,exe program by clicking the file.

DURING this procedure you will be asked for a location on your hard drive in which to store the two files. Use the 'Browse' button to locate a destination folder.

AFTER the procedure, Use 'My Computer' to bring up the 'destination folder' and the original file folder ( usually Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Convert). Place the two windows side by side. In the original file window, right click and the left click 'Rename', changing the extensions from dll to old. Click in the 'destination folder, right click and drag each file in turn to the original folder and left click 'Copy here'. then close all windows.

When completed you might like to Start, Shutdown, Restart your computer to ensure that the system and Registry has accepted the change - although this is not strictly necessary.

After reboot, check that all your Office97 applications can start up.

 

An Excel Query that can be made to create a File destroying spreadsheet

Finally to cover a problem with the possibility of a Query being used to create destructive spreadsheets, a patch for the Jet 3.51 database driver, called: jetcopkg.exe is available and should be used for security reasons.

Run the jetcopkg.exe program by clicking the file.

The patch will be installed and auto complete. 

When completed you might like to Start, Shutdown, Restart your computer to ensure that the system and Registry has accepted the change - although this is not strictly necessary.

After reboot, check that all your Office97 applications can start up.

 

Finally, there are two wizards available from Microsoft which you might like to use for the future to ensure that invalid dates are not input or if there are, they can be fixed.

These are wizards and functions obtained through Tools, Addins in Microsoft Excel. Once you have ticked the addin, it will function in Excel.

 

The file to download for these Addins is: Xldate.exe

This file can be obtained from: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q176/9/43.asp

 

.  

 This concludes the updates and patches for Office97

 

 

Mike Small

PC Relief

30th August, 1999

 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k

It is in your own interests to keep a careful eye on the Microsoft year2K website so that you can be assured about receiving any subsequent patches or updates.

 

Liability Note:

PC Relief accepts no responsibility for the use of any program or for the content of any document herein