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  • #2291875

    How would a third party app detect if MS word is installed

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    by friesentech ·

    We are using some medical software made by E-mds and It looks to see if MS word is installed and if it isn’t some buttons are greyed out because they depend on word and it’s macro capabilities for form letters. The problem is that we have word installed on the machine and it was in fact installed before the E-mds software was. I have also learned that if I give the users administrator rights the problem goes away but I don’t want to do this. I have also tried giving them PowerUser right but this doesn’t solve the problem. My question is how do apps commonly determine if a app like MS word is installed. I would have guessed that it is by looking at the file extension but this is not the case.

    Thanks for your help

    Brandon Friesen

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    • #3296562

      Sounds more like permissions

      by ccollins ·

      In reply to How would a third party app detect if MS word is installed

      This sounds like a permissions issue with the software. The fact that it finds the software when you are an admin means this is not the error. It may write a config file at start-up somewhere in its folder in program files or in the windows folder somewhere. First try giving users full control to the E-mds folder in program files and ensure this propagates down. Then see.

      • #3297533

        The point is how this application checks for Word

        by gaston nusimovich ·

        In reply to Sounds more like permissions

        The only thing that should matter to you is how this application checks whether Word is installed or not.

        An application could try many ways to accomplish such kind of checks, like the following approach, for instance (this is a very simple Excel macro):

        Sub CheckMSWord()

        On Error GoTo eh1

        Dim objWordApp As Object

        Set objWordApp = CreateObject(“Word.Application”)

        Dim strStartUpPath As String

        strStartUpPath = objWordApp.StartupPath

        MsgBox strStartUpPath

        eg1:

        Exit Sub

        eh1:

        MsgBox “MS-Word not installed”, vbCritical

        Resume eg1

        End Sub

        If this Excel macro works on a user without admin permissions, then it might mean that the application is using a strange way to check if Word is installed, like trying to create some kind of file on a certain folder and checking if it was successful or not.

    • #3297478

      One more detail I forgot to mention

      by friesentech ·

      In reply to How would a third party app detect if MS word is installed

      The users already have full rights to the E-mds program folder.

    • #3297384

      answer is here

      by myndebox ·

      In reply to How would a third party app detect if MS word is installed

      permissions- i have noticed that some people have issues under a regular user level, change it to power user. Or upgrade permissions to the user to admin, install the program under the elevated name, then bring it back down afterwards.

      check the registry entries of your app to see where its looking for the winword.exe file. if you put it into a diff dir than the default, you may have issues and reg modification would show that.

      good luck

    • #3295264

      More information to add

      by friesentech ·

      In reply to How would a third party app detect if MS word is installed

      Windows XP systems and our 2003 Terminal Server are having this problem not our Windows 2000 machines.

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