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MS Office Forum / Word / Programming / September 2007Workgroup templates and startup
Forgive me for posting this in two spots. I had second thoughts about putting it in the general questions area, since it's rather technical question. Here's what I'm wondering, with some additions... We're thinking of using the Workgroup Templates feature of Word 2000. The only downside I've read about is the users' inability to work offline. It there are other caveats, please tell me. What I'm specifically interested about is how Workgroup templates interact with User templates. I.E. if identical templates are located on both the Workgroup and User Template paths, which has predominance? In addition, how does one handle global add-ins in a "workgroup" fashion? Point the Tools directory to a shared folder as well? Bear  SignatureWindows XP, Word 2000 -- Windows XP, Word 2000 Hi Bear > Forgive me for posting this in two spots. I had second thoughts about > putting > it in the general questions area, since it's rather technical question. Please go back to that other place, wherever that is, and let people there know that the question is being dealt with here. That might save some people some time. >inability to work offline. Only if the Workgroup Templates folder is pointed to a folder that is inaccessible when offline. >if identical templates are located on both the > Workgroup and User Template paths, which has predominance? UserTemplates >how does one handle global add-ins in a "workgroup" fashion? If you need users to work off line, then create a script that runs at network login time that downloads the addin to the user's Word Startup folder if the addin file has been changed. > Point the Tools directory to a shared folder as well? The Tools directory serves the same function as a man's tie: it takes up space, looks nice and serves no function. Seriously, the Tools folder serves no function at all. Hope this helps. Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP. http://www.shaunakelly.com/word > Forgive me for posting this in two spots. I had second thoughts about > putting [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Bear Shauna: Thanks for your input. (I have gone back and added a note to my original post, as you suggested.) I understand all you've said, but I asked the wrong question. I should have asked about changing the Startup path to a LAN directory. Is that a reasonable way to get "workgroup" add-ins? Bear SignatureWindows XP, Word 2000 > Hi Bear > [quoted text clipped - 47 lines] > > > > Bear Hi What you suggest will work, but these days it's not much recommended. The recommended approach is a copy for everyone in their own Startup folder on the local machine, with the file updated with a script on login. You can just use XCopy in the script. Hope this helps. Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP. http://www.shaunakelly.com/word > Shauna: > [quoted text clipped - 66 lines] >> > >> > Bear Bear, One other issue is that these templates can be in use constantly, making updating of them problematic. You may have to do it at a time when everyone is off-line; if they leave their pcs on over-night, in Word, they can be tied up all the time! :( Never-the-less, we do this in a relatively large organization of 300 people, and we copy down global add-ins as Shauna suggests, and it all works pretty well. Chip > Forgive me for posting this in two spots. I had second thoughts about > putting [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > Bear Chip and Shauna: I'm running my machine this way now: User Templates = LAN folder\Templates Workgroup Templates = blank Startup = LAN folder\Startup All the LAN folders and templates are set to Read Only in Windows. I left my original user templates where they were, so there's no contention between workgroup and user templates, but I can work offline by changing the setting for User Templates (and Startup). This is clearly not as good as the login script and pushing files by date, as there's no certainty how up-to-date anything on my local machine will ever be. Also, I have yet to test it with multiple users. But so far it seems to work okay. Bear SignatureWindows XP, Word 2000 Hi Bear > User Templates = LAN folder\Templates Does this mean (1) each person is pointing to the same Templates folder? Or (2) each person has (eg) an H:\ drive and we each have our own (eg) H:\Templates folder? (1) is a disaster waiting to happen. That's because Word puts Normal.dot in that folder and you cannot share normal.dot files. See You cannot share the Normal.dot file among multiple users in Word http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811468 Furthermore, this configuration also means that no user can ever save a time-saving keyboard shortcut or an AutoText or create their own template or do anything much that distinguishes Word from an IBM Selectric typewriter, except that the IBM Selectric typewriter had a better keyboard<g>. (2) will work, but you can't work off line. However, in this configuration, if you start Word, without being connected to the network, then Word won't be able to find (eg) H:\. So Word does what Word always does: it improvises. Specifically, it will re-set the User Templates and Startup folders to their defaults on the C:\ drive. Now, what happens when I come back from Starbucks, plug the machine in to the network and start Word? Word will *not* magically remember that I used to have User Templates and the Startup folder on the H:\ drive. At this time they are set to C:\ and they'll stay there. So (2) is fine, as long as you *never* work off line. For what it's worth, most configurations these days have to cope with desktop, laptop and remote (eg Citrix Metaframe) access. The best solution I've found is described here: http://groups.google.com.au/group/microsoft.public.office.setup/browse_frm/threa d/9e1a993975d8a9a5/9d6a14996b57453a Hope this helps. Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP. http://www.shaunakelly.com/word > Chip and Shauna: > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Bear Shauna: You're correct about my scheme being unworkable. I hadn't thought the Normal.dot problem through. I wouldn't have encountered the second problem (Word not remembering the LAN paths after working offline) until we'd had a disaster. So, once again I'm indebted to you. It looks very much like a login script is really the only workable solution. Bear SignatureWindows XP, Word 2000 |
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