Cannot open a MS Word file from SharePoint

Question

We have a customer using the following:

• Windows 2003 Server
• SharePoint WSS 3.0
• IE 6
• MS Word 2003 (With Office 2007 converter installed)

When they try and open a docx file from SharePoint they get the following error:

MS Word Error: Cannot Open file 'url of file'

When they take that url and do a file open in MS Word, the file opens with no problem.

The mime types are configured in IIS.

Anyone have an idea how to fix this

Shiraz

Answer 1

Alex, Do they have any tools like UrlScan installed within IIS on the SharePoint server? I have seen that cause problems with opening Office documents from SharePoint.

Regards Simon

Answer 2

With Office 2003 & IE6 in the mix it could be a few different issues. Check the URL Length isn't greater than 256 characters as IE6 might be mangling the URL before sending it to the computer to then hand to Office. If they can go to IE7/IE8, try that as referencing bits in the newer versions should be able to handle the .docx format.