WordArt and other Office dialogs close unexpectedly

Question

When standard users use the Format WordArt feature of Word, the dialog starts but is immediately closed down. Why?

Symptoms

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Cause

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Resolution

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Instructions

WordArt and other Office dialogs may close unexpectedly for one of two reasons.

(a) Illegal Title Text

The dialog may contain title text that is being detected and enforced by title checking. Check the title check entries for the user's group in RangerAdmin.

Note: Whenever ranger closes a dialog due to an illegal title, a message is sent to the Ranger Server to inform LAN Ranger that a security violation has been committed. Check LAN Ranger's Status Log for security violations to identify the offending title text.

(b) Ranger incorrectly "sees" the dialog as a File/Open dialog.

If the dialog looks to Ranger like a standard "File/Open" dialog it will attempt to change the directory to the default save/load path (h:my documents). If the dialog doesn't have the correct controls, then this may cause the dialog to close unexpectedly without an error message or a Security Violation event being sent to LAN Ranger.

This usually only occurs with Office applications since Microsoft use non-standard dialog controls.

A number of dialog definitions are included in an "Exception List" stored inside the main Ranger.dat file.

Open the file with Notepad and locate the Bespoke file dialogs section. The codes define the file dialogs for different Office applications and versions.

Word 2000 Item 10: Pbosa_sdm_Microsoft Word 9.0
Word XP Item 13: Pbosa_sdm_Microsoft Word 10.0

Each item defines the window information for an application's file dialogs. At the end of each line is a series of exceptions in the format "E" + the title of the dialog that is to be excepted.

ie: "EFormat Object" ensures the Format Object dialog is not closed down.

Additional dialog titles can be added if required. Note: these titles are case sensitive and must be entered exactly as they appear in the dialog title.

Format WordArt

Format WordArt is the most common dialog users have problems with. It has recently been reported that some versions of Word have "Format WordArt" with a capital "A" and others with a lower case "a". If necessary, add an additional entry to cater for the different case. (EFormat WordArt)

Testing

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