Office 97 as a normal user

Usually when you put a Windows XP machine on a user's desktop you want to have them logging in as a standard user rather than a power user. However various bits of software have issues with that due to poor design of the way they handle the registry. They try to write to keys or create keys in areas that they don't have permission.

One such delight is Office 97. There are two specific problems. Firstly, spelling and grammar checking is disabled. This has to be fixed with a registry permissions edit.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\Spelling

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\Grammar

both need to have Set Value and Create Subkey enabled for the group Users

The other issue is VBA macros. There are two solutions here. One is another set of permissions changes - but these open up quite a lot in the registry. Much better is this solution.

As administrator run a macro - doesn't matter what - just something to get the macro system used.

Then in

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\VBE\

you will find MSForms.EXD

Copy that to somewhere accessible. Then for each user who needs to run VBA macros, copy this file into their Local Settings\Temp\VBE folder.