What To Do If Outlook Web Access Starts the Office Installer

[This discussion is based on Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 298110 XCCC: Outlook Web Access Starts Office Installer When You Click the New Message Icon]

Sometimes when a user logs on to an Exchange 2000 server by using OWA on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows 2000 and that has Outlook 2000 installed, some strange behavior results. When the user clicks the New Message icon to create a new message, or clicks reply, OWA may start Microsoft Office Installer. The user is then repeatedly prompted for the Office Installation CD. This annoyance can be prevented by either providing the requested installation disk or modifying a Registry entry.

This problem occurs because Office 2000 creates the following entry in the registry when it is installed on Windows 2000:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{438DA5E0-F171-11D0-984E-0000F80270F8} \InprocServer32\InprocServer32 ------>TriEditDocument Class

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{010E6CBE-FE2B-11D0-B079-006008058A0E} \InprocServer32\InprocServer32 ------>TriEditParse Class

These registry keys point to the Office Installer, so every time the DHTML Edit control (which is already installed by Microsoft Internet Explorer) is accessed on the client computer, the Office Installer comes up.

To work around this problem by editing the Registry, remove the string in the Inprocserver32 value so that the value is blank.

1. Start Regedt32.

2. Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{010E6CBE-FE2B-11D0-B079-006008058A0E} \InprocServer32 key

3. Locate the following value on the key:

InprocServer32, a REG_MULTI_SZ value

4. Expand the value, and then remove the entry in the value so that the value is blank. NOTE: The string typically is similar to "26!!gxsf[Ng]gF.........."

5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 for the following path:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{438DA5E0-F171-11D0-984E-0000F80270F8} \InprocServer32\InprocServer32

6. Restart the client computer.

After you have taken the steps described in this article, you can start and edit a new e-mail form in the OWA client without starting the Office Installer.