Error code 0x80020009 (5890)

MS-Windows NT, MS-Word 97.
Our rdbms application uses com-handle to open a word document using visualbasic macros. But on one site the above error
shows up with error in the following:
wordappl:AddIns:Add(lu-TempDir + “WPDoc.dot, True).
where wordappl is a com-handle variable and WPDoc.dot is the word file containing the macros. Interestingly, this works without errors in MS-Word 2000.