Thursday 30 August 2012

Office 2003 Terminal Server Issue on SBS 2011 or 2008 Server.

After installing a nice shiny new SBS 2011 server for one of our customers, we encountered an issue which was difficult to find a way around.
They have a requirement for remote access so Terminal Services (remote desktop) was enabled and set up.
At the point where we tried to install Office 2003, it seemed to install correctly but as soon as I tried to run Word, Powerpoint or Excel, I got the error message 'This feature is not available, contact your administrator' (or words to that effect).
Now a bit of basic Googling will lead you to the classic 'change user /install' and 'change user /execute' commands which are actually automatically applied when you use the 'Control Panel->Programs->Install Application on Remote Desktop...' route.
I tried various permutations of these installation methods including running the Office Setup.exe as administrator with no success.
Having gleaned a few bits of information from others having similar problems I came up with a solution that worked for me.
Firstly, I installed Office using 'Control Panel->Programs->Install Application on Remote Desktop...'.
Then the fix:
It would seem that the initial problem is related to permissions on a folder buried inside the AllUsers folder.
This brings about problems of it's own as the folder is hidden and locked.
In short, if you click Start and Run and type/copy & paste "C:\ProgramData\Application Data\Microsoft\Office", you should see a DATA folder in the resulting window.
I right clicked on this and under the security tab, gave 'Everyone' full permissions.
This then enabled me to run Word and Excel without the error window popping up, but the EULA kept appearing every time either one was opened.
In order to try to resolve this final niggle, I right clicked on Word and looked for 'Run as Administrator' but it wasn't available so I selected properties and 'Advanced' but 'Run as Administrator' was greyed out.
I selected the 'Compatibility' tab and put a tick in the 'Run this program as an administrator' box under 'Privilege Level' followed by Apply and OK.
I ran Word again, agreed to the EULA and closed it back down again, went back into Word's properties and removed the tick, applied and okayed it and re-ran Word... resolved!
Following the same procedure on Excel had the same results and now both run happily.
Simples!

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Amanda Ogelsby Charity Skydive



On Sunday 29th July 2012, Amanda Ogelsby bravely leapt from a plane above Nottinghamshire to raise money for Diabetes UK. If you would like to make a donation to Diabetes UK, please do so at Amanda's 'Just Giving' page

To share Amanda's Skydive experience, click here to view her video.