Sharepoint Beef #3 : Opening docs with native Office apps in IE
We thought we discovered something great when we started using the ActiveXObject('Sharepoint.OpenDocuments.1') approach recently to open Office docs with full Sharepoint 2001 check-out/Document Management support from within IE.
var objDoc = new ActiveXObject('Sharepoint.OpenDocuments.1');
objDoc.EditDocument(sLocation, 'Word.Document');
etc....
The code is an excerpt from the updated FolderItemsPart.xsl webpart available from MS here.
Then we started upgrading workstations from W2K3 Professional to Windows XP Professional and it stopped working! The webpart doesn't work either.
The error we're getting is a javascript error: "Automation Server can't Create Object" as shown here.
We turned off “browse in same window“ in Folder-->Folder Options-->Filetypes-->Advanced. That opened in native Word alright, but we lost the ability to check-out or do any SPS functions with the doc. We updated the Microsoft Windows Script located here, we registered \windows\system32\scrrun.dll. We reinstalled the SPS 2003 Client Components found here. Nothin'.
We could direct people to the folder containing the doc, then the user could open the doc with full Sharepoint DM support, but oh, darn, if the URL is longer than 100 characters, the folder won't OPEN in a window. (That beef is located here.)
Corporate management was so impressed with our ability to launch Office docs with their native apps and with full Sharepoint integration! We should have known it was too good to be true. We spent good money to upgrade our workstations to Microsoft WindowsXP only to screw ourselves with legacy javascript\activex\com\ole crap that doesn't work anymore and our managers want to know why?