Track changes problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter TravisS
  • Start date Start date
T

TravisS

Hello, I just ran across this site today, hopefully, someone can point
me in the right direction with an issue that is bugging us.

When somebody makes a change in a document, the changes made are
showing up as someone else, someone that has never had anything to do
with the original document. Example, I make a change, hover over the
change, another persons name is displayed in the bubble. It is the same
person whose name shows up on every one that we've received this
particular call on in tech support.

We have been able to fix SOME of them, by changing the user information
to their full legal name rather than their login id, which is displayed
by default. We've tried disabling our global templates, but the problem
persists.

Unfortunately, the persons name that pops up is mine, needless to say,
I've been getting a lot of calls on this since we support around 800+
people. We have one of our developers also looking into this, he's also
stumped.

So, if anyone has any opinions or fix recommendations, please let me
know, thanks for your time.
 
I think you'll find the revision name is simply the current user name as
recorded in Tools > Options > User Information. Get the users to set this
correctly.

If you install Word directly, the initial setting for this should be picked
up from the system, but if you have used a ghost installation from a copy
you installed for yourself you may be spreading your name.
 
We use the normal.dot that one of the developers modified with a coupl
of macros, and use that in the Default User\....\templates folder
Also, changing the user information only works on some of them
probably 70% or so. We also tried creating a clean template on
non-ghosted machine (bare build), it's still random.
Also, we ran a search in the registry for anything with my name
nothing. This is very frustrating. We're using Office XP on Window
2000 if that helps any
 
Hi TravisS

Start Word from the command line as "winword.exe /a" (no quotes). This
forces Word to start without using any add-ins and using a
cleanly-created normal.dot. At Tools > Options > User Information enter
a name. Create a new document, turn on track changes, create a change,
hover over it and see who is recorded as the author. It should be the
name you entered into the User Information dialog. If this works, but
starting Word without the /a switch does not work properly, then you
know that the problem lies within normal.dot or one of the add-ins.

I suspect an un-accepted tracked change and/or corruption in normal.dot
or one of the add-ins. For more info about that, see

How can I recover a corrupt document or template - and why did it become
corrupt?
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/CorruptDoc.htm

and, since the normal.dot holds code, see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/TemplateBloat.htm

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
Melbourne, Australia
 
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