SOLVED – Windows Vista: Office 2007 installation runs every time I start Word or Excel, and Excel has an error about stdole32.tlb?

December 21, 2008 by Andy

My laptop has Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit installed as the operating system, but looking at Google, the problem affects any version of Vista. Here is how the problem manifested on my machine.

I install Office 2007 on the machine. The machine does not have any previous version of Office on it.
When I run Word, the installation screen comes up and takes a minute or two configuring Office. On closing Word and restarting it, the installation routine runs again. In fact, it runs every time I run Word.
When I run Excel, I get a rather unhelpful dialogue box popup saying merely “stdole32.tlb”. On clicking the close button for this dialogue box, it closes and Excel and the installation routine runs to configure Office 2007. Again, this happens EVERY time I want to run Office 2007 applications Word and Excel. The other applications appear to work OK on my machine.

The problem is down to registry problems, and I want to thank Brian Peek for the solution. However, since my operating system is in Spanish, and not English, his instructions needed a little modification. Here is a complete walk-through to solve this problem that gives you the info you need if your Windows Vista is in another language.

DISCLAIMER: If you follow these instructions, I take no responsibility for any problems you may subsequently have. You are using these instructions at your own risk. Also, this has not been tested on 64-bit Vista or any other version besides Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit. Of course, if you do decide to go ahead and try this fix, you should backup your registry and your important data.

REQUEST: If this solution works for you (or even if it doesn’t), please consider adding a comment at the end of this page so that I can see whether this fix works for the majority of people trying it. Thanks very much, I appreciate it!

The first step is to check that your computer is indeed suffering from the permissions “bug” in Vista. Click the Windows Start Button, and type regedit into the search box and hit return.

This will open up Windows Regedit tool. Right click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and select Permissions:

This is what you should see in the resulting dialogue box:

Permissions should be set for a variety of users.

If your dialogue box looks like the following screenshot, then you have a problem:

As you see, no permissions have been assigned to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. This is cause of the Office 2007 installation problems, as well as potentially a lot of other problems you are having with installing products.

The very first thing you need to do is backup your registry. There is a good walkthrough of doing this here (thanks Adam).

Next, you need to download a Microsoft tool called SubInACL and install it.

If your computer is the same as mine, it should install into the following folder:

c:\program files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools

Open your text editor and paste in the following code:

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f /grant=restricted=r /grant=YOURUSERNAME=f /grant=restricted=r /setowner=administrators
subinacl /keyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f /grant=restricted=r /grant=YOURUSERNAME=f /grant=restricted=r /setowner=administrators

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f /grant=users=r /grant=everyone=r /setowner=administrators
subinacl /keyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f /grant=users=r /grant=everyone=r /setowner=administrators

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f /grant=users=r /setowner=administrators
subinacl /keyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f /grant=users=r /setowner=administrators

Save the file in the same folder as SubinACL.exe as “officefix.cmd”.

Now, edit the file by replacing the following text:

YOURUSERNAME – replace with your computer username.

You can find this by going into the control panel, and opening up User Accounts.

In my case, I replace YOURUSERNAME with Andy

NON-ENGLISH Vista additional instructions

Now, here is where you have to add an additional couple of steps if you are using a version of Windows Vista that is not in English. You also need to replace these:

administrators & users – needs to be replaced with the equivalent in your language.

If you are unsure what these equivalents are, you can find this information by looking at the properties of the hard drive on your computer. Open Explorer, and right click the C: drive and select properties:

In the dialogue that opens, click onto the Security tab. You should see both the administrator and the users equivalent words on that tab:

If you do not see these users listed here, look at the properties of files or folders on your hard disk until you see these users and you have the equivalent words in your OS language.

Look at the table below to see what you need to substitute in your officefix.cmd file if your OS is in a non-English language (If you can supply this info in another language, please post a comment at the end of this page):

English	Administrator	Users
Spanish	Administradores	Usarios
French (thanks Romu)	administrateurs	utilisateurs
Dutch (thanks Bavo)	Administratrors	gebruikers
German (thanks Raymond)	Administratoren	Benutzer
Portuguese (thanks Clara)	Administradores	Utilizadores
Swedish (thanks Emil)	administratörer	användare

NOTE: Raymond who provided the German translation above, added the following piece of advice:
“If the user name contains a space, it should be written in quotes (“”) in officefix.cmd”

OK; you are now ready to run “officefix.cmd”

Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder where SubInACL.exe and your officefix.cmd files are located. This is probably:

c:program filesWindows Resource KitsTools

Double click the officefix.cmd file. A screen should open and you can see the progress of the operation.

You can now go and have a coffee. The process may take several minutes. When it is complete, try running Word and Excel again. This fixed my problems.

Since fixing my installation of Office 2007 (or should I say the Windows Vista Registry permissions), I have looked into other problems caused by the same registry bug. Here is a great post on Aaron Stebner’s blog showing how to reset your Windows Vista registry. His fix also addresses permissions in the program files folder and the windows directories.

I have since applied this fix over the top of the one I described above, and have had no problems with my machine since (except an annoying Adobe Updater issue, but I suppose I cant win everything).

Please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page if you have found this works for you (or if you have any problems with it). If you are using a different language, please post the words you need to substitute for administrators & users to help others trying to fix this Windows Vista problem.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Computer Troubleshooting
Tagged: installation runs, office 2007, registry permissions, stdole32.tlb, vista

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Comments

138 Responses to “SOLVED – Windows Vista: Office 2007 installation runs every time I start Word or Excel, and Excel has an error about stdole32.tlb?”

brian on January 7th, 2009 9:41 am

i just wanted to say thanks for this fix. i have spent days trying to fix this and yours was the only one that worked.
Randy Lindsey on January 13th, 2009 3:30 pm

I want you to know how much I appreciate this. I’ve been working on this issue for over two weeks, several sessions with Microsoft Update Support, and hours searching Google for an answer. My “stdole32.tlb” problem in Excel started after updating Office 2003 with Office SP3 on my XP Home system. Your subinacl routine did the job beautifully. Thanks.
Romu on January 23rd, 2009 9:22 pm

Thx a lot, I solved my problem with “stdole32.tlb” with Office 2007 on Vista.

Merci beaucoup, j’ai corrigé le problème du “stdole32.tlb” sur Office 2007 avec Windows Vista.

Comme je suis français, j’ai du changer “administrators” par “administrateurs” et “users” par “utilisateurs”.

Problème résolu donc.

Merci bcp, honte à Microsoft de ne pas avoir fait un fix.
Cristian on January 25th, 2009 10:24 pm

It realy works. Thanks a lot
Robert Omer on January 26th, 2009 12:12 pm

You rock! Finally something that works-thank you.
Arch on January 29th, 2009 3:02 am

Hi, I just wanna say very very very thanks to you, superb!
David on January 31st, 2009 9:58 pm

Thankyou for achieving something that microsoft cannot
even though it is their stuff
This works and nothing else did
I knew it was a microsoft bug and they can’t fix it.
Pat on February 1st, 2009 8:09 am

at last !!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much for this fix. It worked like a charm. Like others I’ve been looking for the correct fix for ages – and yours was the only one that work. Many thanx
hector on February 2nd, 2009 3:41 pm

thanks a lot!!!….you save me…this was drive me crazy,…
Jack on February 11th, 2009 1:44 pm

When I ran this it scared me because it showed a lot of failed errors in the DOS dialog box, but it worked when nothing else would take care of the problem!
Dimitris on February 15th, 2009 9:42 am

It really worked on a Greek Vista Office machine. Thank you very much.
Bill on February 17th, 2009 4:49 am

Thank you very much for this solution. I have been searching for a solution on the internet for the past 2 days and nothing worked until I applied your solution. Thank your again!!!
Steve on February 23rd, 2009 9:20 pm

Well done, brilliant!
It worked for me after wasting hours trying other fixes over 3 months.
Office 2007 was running fine, until probably a windows update caused the registry problem.
I have also had severe problems with flash player not working after installing Photoshop Elements 7 recently. Your fix has also resolved that problem.
Thanks very much.
bavo debusschere on February 28th, 2009 4:32 pm

Also a great thank you from Belgium.

The Dutch translation of “Administrators” is “Administratrors” and of “users” is “gebruikers”
Andrius on March 6th, 2009 4:57 pm

Worked perfect. thank You very much on this one. I also posted link from my blog, maybe this will help people to find the fix.

Greetz from Lithuania.
Francisco on March 7th, 2009 9:57 pm

I have installed Winfows VIsta Premium 64 bits. It wotks with a little mistakes. (Office 2003)
Language Spanish:

administradores / usuarios

Thank you very much.
Gracias.
Chris on March 12th, 2009 12:18 am

Thanks for the help – another method is to download the SP1 office 2007 service pack which also does the same thing for those of us that are less tech savvy.
Jaclyn on March 12th, 2009 2:21 am

What is text editor????
Bob on March 14th, 2009 6:36 pm

This worked like a champ. One update, I added the appropriate permissions to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT using the interface. One does not need to generate the commands that then run in the command file. But that is perhaps a function of the comfort level people have fooling with the registry at all. Anyway, this was an awesome find. Thank you Andy!
Omar on March 25th, 2009 12:35 am

thank u so much dude
Andy on March 25th, 2009 5:16 pm

Actually Chris, the Office SP1 service pack DID NOT fix this on my machine.
Vincent on March 25th, 2009 10:53 pm

OMG! Fantastic. I had given up as I had tried so many other suggestions that were either too difficult to understand or just didn’t work. After many months of this problem THIS worked perfect. Thanks so much.
Marco on March 31st, 2009 1:17 am

You are simply the best!! Two months without using Outlook and five minutes to fix the bug!! Thank you very much, indeed!!!
Raymond B. on April 3rd, 2009 8:53 pm

You, Sir, are my hero. After at least a dozen hours of Internet research, half a dozen fixes that didn’t solve the issue (the last one even forcing me to boot from CD and revert to a previous restore point), this one did the trick.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

(and shame on Microsoft for not having fixed this colossal blunder or included a fix for it in their knowledge base yet, given the large number of people having this problem)

One suggestion for your excellent writeup above: If the user name contains a space, it should be written in quotes (“”) in officefix.cmd, for example, if your user name is “Zaphod Beeblebrox” you should substitute

/grant=YOURUSERNAME=f
with
/grant=”Zaphod Beeblebrox”=f

The translations for the German version of Vista are as follows:

Administrators -> Administratoren
Users -> Benutzer

Also, note that if the users start the texteditor from the Vista menu, it will not have administrative permissions and thus officefix.cmd can not be saved to a subfolder of c:\Program Files, where subinacl.exe was saved by its installer.

And finally, the translation problem could probably be avoided by using the “Well-known group” S-1-5-* SIDs which are built-in and language-independent (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/243330):

S-1-5-32-544 is the SID for Administrators
S-1-5-32-545 is the SID for Users

there is no “Well-known group” for the individual user accounts, of course, but you can retrieve them by typing “whoami /all” into a command prompt.

Caution: I haven’t tried if the SID-stuff above really works and I’m not much of a Windows hacker, so stick with Andy’s method until someone with courage and a system to spare has confirmed that the alternative works!!!

Again, thanks for taking your time and publishing this!
Raymond
Juste on April 4th, 2009 4:59 pm

Thank you so much, because it’s really worked on my computer. i have 2003 office and I can’t believe that it works well now. I spend hours for trying find out, what’s wrong. Really, thank you for your help!
barry on April 5th, 2009 8:45 pm

i have this problem and can follow your instructions until it comes to the open text editor .what is it you mean ,i am a complete novice
Andy on April 6th, 2009 9:20 am

Barry
For a Text editor open notepad that comes with Windows.
Tom on April 14th, 2009 2:09 am

Works like a charm. I wasted some time searching for a solution like this on Google, only to find it at the top on Yahoo. Go figure!
Glen W on April 19th, 2009 2:18 pm

I hate to be the one guy with a negative response on this. I have the wonderfully powerful (joke) 64-bit Vista and the instructions contained on this site did not work for my computer. I am hopeful that maybe there is something someone knows that can help me fix it but I remain cautiously optimistic.

I have tried changing the “YOURUSERNAME” to just about anything it could possibly be. I used the method shown above as well as the “whoami” command to retrieve the name (they returned different results). When I run “officefix.cmd” my machine begins like you would expect but then continues to process for a couple of hours and finally errors out.

I was so excited when I saw this site and the results people were having. Hopefully someone knows a fix to my problem. I’m not counting on Bill Gates to solve it anytime soon.

I have also tried fixing the registry by downloading and purchasing software recommended by Microsoft to supposedly fix the problem. WTF Microsoft!?!? You would think with this many people experiencing the problem they would have a solution patch for their software.

Anyway. I am a slave to Word, Excel, and Access now because I have tens of thousands of lines of code that I have written to streamline processes. Unfortunately I can’t run any of it on my new laptop so I am also a slave to my desktop. I don’t think I will “upgrade” to a new Microsoft OS on that machine any time soon.
Andy on April 19th, 2009 11:13 pm

Hi Glen
Sorry it didn’t work for you, but as I said, it hasnt been tested on 64 bit Vista. Did you have a look at Brian Peek’s site. I provide a link to it at the beginning of this article. There are some people there with 64 bit who have chipped in with some advice. Let us know if it helps.
Leonardo Lamanna on April 20th, 2009 8:34 am

My friend I have (both in spanish, since I’m from Buenos Aires) Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 with Office 2007 Enterprise updated to SP1 trough Windows Update (I only have installed Word, Excel and Powerpoint, upgrading the same apps from Office 2003)… and I get this annoying error message (with no description or any else): stdole32.tlb … and CAN´T GET SOLVED by following (extrictly) your method…
Besides ANYTIME I run Excel or Word (not with Powerpoint) I get involved in a “office configuration” (part of the setup program?) that starts and finish (at least, it seems to be) fine!
I obviously tryed to uninstall office completelly and re-install… reinstall as Administrator… rebooting at any instance… updating ANYTHING by Windows Update… I’m getting rid of this, and I can´t find a way to solve it.
CAN YOU HELP ME PLEASE?… PLEASEEEEE!!??
Thank you VERY VERY MUCH in advance!
Andy on April 20th, 2009 12:04 pm

Leonardo
If your Windows is in Spanish you need to change the words Adminstrator and Users into the Spanish shown in the table above.
Leonardo Lamanna on April 20th, 2009 2:54 pm

First of all: THANK YOU FOR YOUR PROMT FEEDBACK.

I missunderstud some point of your instructions and get the Idea that if (in spanish) Administrator and Users are shown as “Administradores” and “Usuarios” at the security tad, under the system hard drive properties, that would be enough to get it work. SORRY FOR THAT.

At second instance: THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTETION AND HELP.

Your answer push me to review carefully your original post and finally I get the right concept on the work to be done!
After 2 days of intensive search for the solution, finally I get the solution… EVERYTHING is working fine! (at 100%)

As a final comment: THANK YOU FOR BEING!

May be this sounds crazy or funny, but let me tell you that the way on which you help people (anybody, don´t care who is or if you know them) brings me a high reflection: why the things are going so bad in the world while being people like you??… I’m not jocking!

I’m not a philosopher… neither (and so far) a mystic or religious guy!
JUST THINKING:

People like you: commited on to give a hand to other people by gaining anything else than a “THANK YOU” are the difference… and makes the world a better place.

THANK YOU – THANK YOU – THANK YOU!
Yoseff on April 20th, 2009 7:19 pm

Hi
I am having this terrible problem…
I did not solve it with this solution
As so many people did t, so maybe i a doing something wrong.
My Vista is in Portuguese and this is what i did wrote:

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=Administradores=f /grant=system=f /grant=restricted=r /grant=J&S=f /grant=restricted=r /setowner=Administradores
subinacl /keyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=Administradores=f /grant=system=f /grant=restricted=r /grant=J&S=f /grant=restricted=r /setowner=Administradores

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=Administradores=f /grant=system=f /grant=Utilizadores=r /grant=everyone=r /setowner=Administradores
subinacl /keyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=Administradores=f /grant=system=f /grant=Utilizadores=r /grant=everyone=r /setowner=Administradores

subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=Administradores=f /grant=system=f /grant=Utilizadores=r /setowner=Administradores
subinacl /keyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=Administradores=f /grant=system=f /grant=Utilizadores=r /setowner=Administradores

My username is J&S and i think did found rigth the names: Administradores and Utilizadores…
i am a litle lost here…
Thanks
Yose on April 20th, 2009 10:28 pm

Great tutorial, but i think i did something wong, cause it did not worked for me…
My vista is in portuguese.
Does it help if i put here exactly how i did?
thanks
Andy on April 21st, 2009 7:48 am

Yose
Are you sure you got the correct words for administrator and users? Also are you using 32 bit Windows as this tutorial has not been tested on 64 bit Windows (other than one comment on here that said it did not work on 64-bit). For 64 bit I suggest you look at Brian Peeks tutorial (see beginning of this article).
Yoseff on April 23rd, 2009 11:52 pm

I think i did use the right words… Administradores and Utilizadores, as seen in c:/ Properties/security ( It says: Utilizadores Autenticados, Sistema, Administradores (Portatil_HP\Administradores), Utilizadores (Portatil_HP\Utilizadores) )
It is 32 bit Windows Vista Home Premium SP1. What else you think it may be?
Brian Peeks tutorial can be aplyed to 32 bit, also?
Thanks
Yoseff on April 24th, 2009 12:44 am

I think i discovered the problem I neeed to activate the super administrator account, pass to it , and only then aply the fix
Will check it now. Tell you then.
Yoseff on April 24th, 2009 1:09 am

Solved !!!!!
Thanks
Daniel on April 24th, 2009 3:01 pm

WOW!!! AWSOMEEEEEEEEE!
It worked perfect for me… some starting problems but then it works perfect !
finallyyyy THANK YOU!
Mike on April 24th, 2009 5:42 pm

Thank you. You’re a life saver. This solution works perfectly!
Borislav on May 5th, 2009 9:56 am

Thank you!!! worked for me too.
Mikec on May 6th, 2009 7:01 pm

Your solution worked for me too. Thank you very much for solving hours of frustration!
John on May 11th, 2009 10:35 pm

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, but I may have found an easier way? Instead of using the SubInACL program, I just manually set the permissions inside the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Then I uninstalled Office 2007, and then reinstalled Office 2007.

At least this worked for me. Was there something in that SubInAcl program that I needed to use?
Neo on May 12th, 2009 10:17 am

Thanx alot dude… worked like a charm.
Cathy on May 12th, 2009 10:20 am

Hi! First let me say what a clear and helpful set of instructions, thank you!
Windows Office 2007 installer starts up at every opportunity on my Vista Ultimate laptop with Office 2007, + Access 2003 and MS Project 2007.
I was really pleased to read your solution and tried it, unformtunately it didn’t work. My permissions seem to be OK, so I was wondering if you had any thoughts on what the problem might be and how to solve it? I also had a look at Aaron Stebner’s weblog and treid his reset steps, still no luck
Anyway many thanks for addressing this, it seems to be a common problem and neither my laptop supplier (Dell) or Microsoft seem to be able to fix it.
Cathy on May 13th, 2009 6:44 pm

Just an update to this. Dell spent 3 hours in this today and have resolved it by uninstalling MSOffice 2007 and re installing it, plus some registry editing work. Everything seems to work as it should, but there are now some updates waiting to install and I am reluctant to do that in case it starts the whole configuring problem off again.
Suggest that an uninstall and reinstall might work for anyone who has this problem, and does not find relief with the permissions fix on this site.
Rod Matthhews on May 24th, 2009 11:05 am

Thanks – it really works for Office 2007 and for my Itunes which was also trying to configure each time I started it.
Clara Ferreira on May 31st, 2009 7:24 pm

Thank you. You’re my Idol!
This works perfectly with my Windows Vista Premium and Office 2003 Portuguese.

Portuguese:

Users = Utilizadores
Administrators = Administradores
Dee on June 3rd, 2009 4:18 pm

I felt very confident about the fix with the amount of positive feedback logged here, but the fix made no difference in my case.

By chance I found that by running the programs directly from the program folder the problem was not encountered. I tried adjusting the the “start in” parameter in the shortcut properties but this made no difference either.

In the end I simply deleted the shortcuts in the program group and simply recreated them.
Robert Selwyn on June 7th, 2009 2:02 am

This looks so promising but no joy. I get alot of errors -
example: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT – RegSetKeySecurity Error : 5 Access is denied.
What do I do to fix that? I only have one account on my Vista 32 machine so I am at a loss.

Also it was helpful to see the post about spaces in the username and to surround with quotes. I use “Selwyn Family’.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Jamel on June 11th, 2009 3:04 pm

B R A V O et merci.
J’ai passé plusieurs jours à trouver la solution et la votre a été efficace au premier essai.
Merci Microsoft !!!
Gary on June 29th, 2009 2:13 am

Andy…After following your easy-to-follow instructions and restarting my computer, it worked like a charm! Thanks for the very helpful advice!
sakapisha on July 3rd, 2009 3:17 pm

Thanks works fine also for me.

For the Adobe Installation problem i resolved disableing the “Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin”.

bye
Marmar on July 14th, 2009 11:35 pm

Tried this, ran through the office fix fne, on a 32 bit vista machine – but no joy! All in English too – Annoying but lucky for those that it works for.
Peter Vassiliou on July 16th, 2009 10:30 pm

Thanks for the great post! I can confirm that it worked great on Windows 7 RC x64. It didn’t repair all apps though, so I had to uninstall Visio and reinstall it.
Isotech on August 15th, 2009 11:41 am

Wow finally a solution, it worked great.
Now the “BIG QUESTION”

Why has Microsoft not released a fix, they have got to have known about this solution?

Or

Is it that they do not want to admit that Vista is full of bugs and holes, you know it makes you think what else are they hiding. For once I just wish Microsoft would be honest.
Scott R on August 19th, 2009 4:37 am

YOu Rock…I have talked to everyone and called everyone, this is the only thing that has worked.

Thanks
Chuck on August 20th, 2009 7:27 am

THANK YOU !!!!! I agree with everyone else you did a great job putting this together,other fixes were confusing or didnt work. I did a clean removal of office 2000 and did and install of 2007 and I regreted it ever since.I’m so tired of microsift bugs and gliches ,I even shut of microsoft updates because every single day there updates the last one shut down half of my im messenger conversations. A good programming team would never put out such garbage.I read the micosoft is giving billions to indian and pakistany software programmers training sites. Talk about a sell out to america !!
stash64 on August 22nd, 2009 12:33 am

Worked for me. Thank You. I contacted Microsoft and I am still waiting for a resolution from them. It will feel good to tell them I don’t need their help. Well Done !!! I just wonder how my registry got messed up in the first place. I’ve never done any registry editing, but I guess I have now.
Veronika on August 24th, 2009 6:22 pm

Hi,
I’ve got pretty similar problem. I am actually the only user of the computer, with the administrator rights, but still, every time i try to run the instalation of MS WORD 2007, it says: “you have to be administrator to run this program”. I checked my account: I am logged as User/Administrator! Can this be fixed?
thank you!
Evergreen on September 3rd, 2009 7:49 pm

Great, thanks very very much.
Worked great, I’ve been searching for a fix for this for months.
Serhat on September 4th, 2009 8:50 pm

Hi, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT has appropriate permissions but i have this problem, too. What also may cause this problem except registry permissions? Please help, I use Home and Student edition
Erick on September 17th, 2009 2:19 am

Hi, I´m trying to do this but when I want to save the code as officefix.cmd a dialog box says that I don´t have permissions to save in the same folder as SubinACL.exe that I need to need permission from administrator and this asks me if I want to save it in my user folder as an alternative.
What should I do???
Because I saved in my documents and then I cut it and pasted in the folder that you said, then I clicked but it didn´t work
Help please.
I have another question. Do you know how to eliminate the window of windows installer every time I want to open word or excel or power point this windows appears and it´s very stressful.
Leo on September 21st, 2009 2:45 am

Thank you.

This worked perfectly.I appreciate the time you have taken to solve this and to share the answer with the rest of us.
Sailor on September 23rd, 2009 5:08 am

Unfortunately it did not work for me! When the subinacl.msi program was running a red band showed some errors occurring as it ran.
It did not change the registry permission file and the same problem still exists with Excel, Word and Powerpoint.

Too bad I was hoping this was the solution.
bryan on September 23rd, 2009 5:54 am

Work great…took over an hour. I wish microsoft would make a built in permissions repair like MAC does. Vista is horrible with permissions.

***The errors are registry entries that do not require modification.
****If anyone is having trouble saving or coping the file into program file try logging in as administrator.
Henry on September 30th, 2009 3:52 am

Didn’t work for me… Excel is still starting with the prompt showing “stdole32.tlb” and afterwards a “Configuration Process” starts – minutes later it is ready to use.
I also saw the red band showing a high number of “failed” entries or corrections (I suppose)
Henry on September 30th, 2009 4:30 am

IT WORKED after I had done a small correction to the described procedure and ran it again: I started the command prompt as admin – right-click on it and click Run As Administrator and did it again… PERFECT, THANKS!
Erwin on September 30th, 2009 7:32 am

I’ma try this fix. Im hopeful that this would work. Thank you!
Erwin on September 30th, 2009 7:49 am

Update: Worked like a charm! Thank you so much! You saved me from a days work of reformatting and configuring my system.
Keetz on October 7th, 2009 4:59 am

You are the best Andy! I’m amazed. I just started having a problem with office after a new install. I tried everything and nothing work. Then I found your article. It fixed not only that, but a few other issues I had. IE would not let me install Flash, and several design applications I have would not work because they thought Flash wasn’t installed (it worked in other browsers…). Now everything is working fine. Now why can’t MS find someone with a clue like yourself to sort this shit out for them. They might develop a nicer product.
Thanks man.
Patrick on October 7th, 2009 11:22 am

Brilliant! I had problems initially, i had high number of errors and it still did not work, so what i did was:

Click on start:
Select All programs
Select Accessaries
Right click on cmd (Choose to run as Administrator)

Then from there type in
cd c:\(The location where you stored the file)
Then run the “officefix.cmd”

You know it worked when you have 100% modification rate. 0 fail and 0 errors.

Cheers!

Well done thanks alot too!
J on October 8th, 2009 5:30 pm

I have 64bit Windows Vista Home ed. and it worked for me!!!!!!!!!!!
Many thanks!
Martyn on October 8th, 2009 6:02 pm

Thanks for taking the time to compile this fix, it has worked for me first time.
Briliant news.
John on October 11th, 2009 1:19 pm

I have the same problem as apparently a lot of other people
32bit Vista Home and Student , when I run Word 2007 it runs configure everytime,
Excel the same and also comes up with “stdole32.tlb” .
The other applications seems to work fine.
I followed Your instructions and went into regedit, my screen shot is identical to yours,
so I conclude that it, in my case, is not an admin. problem, I then went into the control panel and repaired office 2007, but to no avail, I have still got this annoying problem.
But thanks for trying to help some of us not so smart puter buffs.
Many thanks
Hemanta on October 11th, 2009 10:58 pm

Hey Great work Man Iam Annoying from this problem from 2 months and in two minutes u just solved my problem
thnx
Mikael on October 14th, 2009 7:52 am

Windows 7 x64 : This cause my registry to mess up. Upon restart my sound card is uninstalled, no audio, internet acting weirdly claiming there is no net connection, explorer.exe can’t run cus of no HDD apparently. I can’t browse my PC anywhere. Not even My Computer. My computer is severely messed up meaning I’ll have to reformat just as I had recovered from my last one and just in time to intercept my internet course I’ve paid $200 for and is ticking away. System restore is broken. No HDD space available it claims. Registry wasn’t restored in safe mode’s system restore. Same issues.

I fixed my Ms Word, not by the guide but another one: reg add

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options /v NoReReg /t REG_DWORD /d 1

reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Options /v NoReReg /t REG_DWORD /d 1

Enter both lines into Run and hit enter. Replace \Word\ with \PowerPoint\ etc and enter them to help remove the config’ing popup on each launch.

I solved office but messed by PC. Yay

Any help is much appreciated.
Mikael on October 14th, 2009 7:53 am

Also…

it may be a good idea to suggest for people to actually back their registry keys up beforehand…
Andy on October 14th, 2009 10:46 am

Sorry it didn’t work for you, but as I did state, this fix was only tested on Windows Vista 32 bit (Ultimate version). Whenever you do anything to your registry, you should of course back it up.
Have you tried starting up in Safe Mode? I am not familiar with Windows 7, so don’t know to do this. On Vista, you also have an option to restore Vista when its starting up. I believe its the F8 key.
Sharon Stiles on October 14th, 2009 9:52 pm

Oh how I wish I had found this earlier and not wasted so many hours trying to find a solution. Thank you SO much!!!
Ahmed on October 15th, 2009 12:18 pm

I would like to thank you so much , you have save me from reinstalling windows again, i have tried every possible solution and none,
thank you forever for the nice demostration as well

best regards
alan kavanagh on October 15th, 2009 8:19 pm

Hi Andy , it took me a while to get this problem resolved and right at least 4 tries – But thanks as it worked on my dell laptop and I am delighted the problem has gone away for good..I made a few little mistakes – like not changing date on Registry etc – not running program office file correctly ..Anyway tks Alan
Relieved on October 18th, 2009 12:43 am

Thank-you Thank-you Thank-you Thank-you……I tried about 6 different “fixes” found on the web….this was the only one that worked!!!
Harlene on October 20th, 2009 7:46 pm

I’m on Vista Business 64-bit. There’s no registry permission discrepancy as reported but I also experienced the same “stdole32.tlb” error everytime Excel is opened.

The problem is finally resolved after I manually uninstall all Office components including Trial and Activation Assistant before installing the paid version of Office Professional Plus 2007.

If MS Office cannot be completely uninstalled using Programs and Features (or Add or Remove Programs) in Control Panel, follow the instructions in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928218 to manually delete all Office files and registry subkeys.

Hope this helps those who are still struggling with the error.
mariano on October 31st, 2009 12:57 am

Perfect, thanks very much
Name on November 7th, 2009 3:30 pm

It does not work in Windows 7 *64
Andy on November 13th, 2009 11:16 pm

Perfect! Have been searching for and trying different solutions for several weeks now. Your solution worked first time…..and the way it was explained was perfect for a relative novice. Thank you!
Peo on November 22nd, 2009 12:15 pm

Thank you, I spent many hours with this.

Your solution did fix the problem with word and excel (setup running at every start and the stdole problem) BUT Outlook still runs the configuration at every start.

That was my original problem, the problem with word and excel came after uninstalling and reinstalling office .

So I am really back where I started.
Any hints someone?
Peo on November 22nd, 2009 3:28 pm

Hoping that someone can come up with a solution, I did a workaround.

Just renaming the setup.exe in “C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\OFFICE12\Office Setup Controller” did not help, it will be reinserted at next start up.

So I created a “do nothing” setup.exe and put it in that folder, and now outlook starts without annoying dialogs.

This seems to be an issue for many, according to all the hits when searching for a solution, it is amazing that MS don’t publish a fix to this.

(BTW I this has not been a problem to me earlier, I was using Thunderbird until last week, but now I have to connect to an Exchange server and use the calendar and contacs of that one and that does not seem to work properly in Thunderbird yet, mail is no problem).
Norman Hirsch on November 24th, 2009 11:41 pm

It worked like a champ!!! Muchas Gracias, Thank You, Xie xie, etc.
Tomas on November 27th, 2009 12:10 pm

Thank you very much for this clear and quite fast guide, it acctualy solved my problem.

Regards from Lithuania
Émerson on December 1st, 2009 3:34 am

Andy, i need your help ! I’m using super-administrator account and when I run officefix.cmd the following error occurs:

C:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools>subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_US
ER /grant=administradores=f /grant=system=f /grant=restricted=r /grant=Débora=f
/grant=restricted=r /setowner=administradores
LookupAccountName : HKEY_CURRENT_USER:restricted 1337 A estrutura da identificação de segurança é inválida.

Current object HKEY_CURRENT_USER will not be processed

Translating the error message: “1337 The structure of the security ID is invalid”

Thank you in advance
Andy on December 3rd, 2009 10:41 am

Sorry Emerson, I dont know the answer to that. Maybe someone else who reads this can help.
ITADMIN on December 4th, 2009 5:36 pm

Thanks a lot! All works fine.
But I just use regedt32 and made modifications to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
where
f=full rights
r=restricted
and USER was selected from Active Dicectory
Ken on December 5th, 2009 9:35 am

Brilliant!
Rob Cowart on December 10th, 2009 8:27 pm

Andy,

My HKEY_CLASSIS_ROOT looks just like the first one that ou say is how it should look. However, I still have the problem with an install every time I start one of the Office tools…..

Any thougts?
Allie B on December 11th, 2009 7:06 pm

well I had spent days trying to find the answer and this worked for me – I also had a problem with my handhelp mobile PC syncing with out look and as soon as it had finished all my data then synced with the phone.
Thanks
Andy on December 11th, 2009 10:56 pm

I don’t know Rob. I would probably backup the registry and create a restore point anyway, and try this fix.
Geoff on December 15th, 2009 9:13 am

Thanks for this – Brilliant! In my case, there were two ‘failed’ errors, but it fixed the problem with Office 2007 anyway!!
Incidentally, I ran it as my Username first (2 errors), then as an Administrator (same 2 errors), then again as my Username (same 2 errors). Typically I interuppted it the first 2 times after I’d seen the errors, but the third time I let it run through – so I don’t know which one fixed it.
Thanks again.
Lynch on December 15th, 2009 9:22 am

Hey!

Thanx for the fix.. I run Vista 64-bit and it solved my problem.. also it solved a regitry issue on Illustrator CS4 =)
Frosty on December 28th, 2009 2:32 am

Thanks for the Great Info Andy,

Unfortunately, my Vista 64 will not run “SubInACL.exe”. I’ve downloaded it and double click it to run and all I see is a momentary window open them immediately close. Any suggestions?

By the way, I am experiencing the “config” running anytime I try to open one of the Office programs.

Both are legit copies with legit keys.

Thanks for the help,
Frosty
Mike on December 28th, 2009 4:37 am

I tried this fix several times and also Aaron Stebner’s fix. Neither works for me. I’m running 32-bit Vista and just installed Office 2007. I get the stdole32.tlb error message with Excel and also each time I start Excel or Word the Office configuration routine occurs. Any suggestions?
Andy on December 28th, 2009 9:48 am

Its just a guess, but have you tried running subinacl as administrator? Right click it and select Run As Administrator.
Sherry on December 30th, 2009 7:32 pm

Wow, this fixed that office problem that just started yesterday! So glad I found your instructions before I decided to wipe Vista clean and start over! Thank you!
Phil Molyneux on January 10th, 2010 9:54 pm

At last – Advice that works!
Forums are littered with advice on how to solve this windows bug but this is the only answer that I have found that works!
Thank You.
Richard Whybrow on January 23rd, 2010 5:37 pm

You total star put to rest a months pain! Thank you!

One time I found that it does not work unless UAC is turned off!

Thanks again!
pepe13a on January 23rd, 2010 8:00 pm

Very good! – I can confirm that it also works on Windows 7 64bit (Home Premium).
When installing MS Office 2002, 2003 or 2007 I first always got the Installation/Configuration routine with missing stdole32.tlb when starting the programs – very frustrating!
I used your procedures with downloading/installing SubInACL and making the “officefix.cmd”, changing the username and running it with double-click.
It did NOT succeed – many FAIL’s, very few DONE’s.

I then looked into Aaron Stebner’s blog (your link) and used his routine with his “reset.cmd” (downloaded from his link), changed the username and run it then the way he instructed. It was a complete success!!

I believe that it is vital to run the “reset.cmd” or “officefix.cmd” as an Administrator with elevated privileges, i.e. select All Programs, then Accessories, then right-click on the item named Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator.

In my case the “reset.cmd” using SubInACL run for 28 min and changed 300,000 entries, failing on 100,000 entries.
After reinstalling MS Office everything is as it should be – no funny messages.
Also, the routine removed all silly “You don’t have permissions” prompts to open folders, so now my Windows 7 performs like good old XP.

I am really happy now and recommend this for anybody working on Vista or Windows 7.

Thank you for this advice!
Emil on January 26th, 2010 1:44 am

The Swedish translations are:
administrators = administratörer
users = användare

And it worked for me after a few set backs
Joann on February 3rd, 2010 3:23 am

Thank you. It works for me. However, after reboot, my network connection didn’t come up. I have to manually configure the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway and default DNS server before it works again.

The problem is I oftenly go out of town, thus will need auto-config for my wireless connection. Did anyone ever get the same problem like me? I am using Vista SP1 Home Edition and Office 2007 Professional.

Thanks in advance.
Jerry on February 7th, 2010 6:08 am

Thank you.
sajovan on February 7th, 2010 2:36 pm

Thank you. It works for me.Thank you.
stuart on February 11th, 2010 2:16 pm

I have the problem but my registry permissions seem to be set correctly. Any ideas? Sorry if I missed this in the thread.
Liz Moore on February 14th, 2010 6:24 am

Wow. Was scarey but Excel, Word and others are working normally now.
Joann on February 18th, 2010 4:30 am

Hi,

My auto-config network connections (both LAN and Wireless) still not working after applying this change. I think I still can live with the Office error rather than not being able to connect to any other wireless/wired routers (except my home router).

Is there a way to undo the “subinacl /subkeyreg” changes above?

Thank you in advance for any help.

Jo
Andy on February 18th, 2010 11:10 am

REstore from backup.
mike on March 1st, 2010 1:51 am

I did the work and ran the fix but it did not change the error. installer still tries to run every time I open word.
excel gives me that stdole32 error.

I have vista and office 2003 on an hp laptop
rpbale on March 1st, 2010 5:28 am

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Brilliant. After hours and days of research yours is the only fix that fixed it. I am running Office 2003 & 2007 on Vista.

What amazes me is that I didn’t always have this problem. I wonder what program messed up the permissions in the first place.

Rick
Adrian Hastings on March 8th, 2010 5:56 pm

Thank you so much.

Your instruction are so clear.

You have saved me a lot of time and effort.

I you ever visit Dublin (Ireland) let me know and I will
shower you with Guinness
Razzladazzla on March 13th, 2010 1:37 pm

Another satisfied customer! Thank you so much! It worked like a dream. I noticed that one change failed (out of hundreds of thousands!) , but my Office works perfectly now
Nabin Acharya on March 14th, 2010 4:29 am

thank you very much…you solved all my tensions out..it was really annoying me…ma operating system is in german ..
Joan on April 4th, 2010 8:47 pm

Solved my problem for office 2007 sp2 – 64 bit vista pc
Marc on April 5th, 2010 5:35 am

You are a new hero of mine. This has annoyed me for many many months. Im posting this solution other places. Thanks!!
jt on April 11th, 2010 5:59 pm

Yes!!!! FINALLY!!!! This works!!!!
Phil Pemberton on April 14th, 2010 5:18 pm

I had same symptoms (Installer launching everytime) – but didnt appear to be missing permissions. Applied this fix and it did not work – installer still launches everytime.
Tomáš Soldán on April 20th, 2010 3:19 pm

Thank you verry much – it worked well.

(in czech)
Díky moc – funguje to.
Pete on April 22nd, 2010 8:51 pm

Wow – works PERFECTLY, first time. I too spent ages trying to sort this. Thanks!

P.S. Those worried about ‘failures’ in the DOS box – ignore completely, just means that the file was otherwise occupied etc. Makes no difference to the outcome.
Tom on April 25th, 2010 8:16 pm

OMG – i’ve search for a view evenings and finally i found this solution.
It run’s !

THANK you so much !!!

My OS is a Vista Ultimate 64 Edition.
My Office is an Office 2007 Professional

P.S. I’ve open a ticket two days ago to fix the problem – it will be interessting, what kind of suggestion they give.
Mohit on May 17th, 2010 10:51 am

waah. It worked for me as well.
thanks a lottttttttttttttt
dawn on May 17th, 2010 1:41 pm

Unfortunately this didn’t work for me. I’m going to try Aaron Stebner’s registry repair solution.
miguel on May 18th, 2010 1:08 am

tengo problemas con instalar office 2007 estubo instalado en mi pc portatil y lo desinstale luego formatie la pc y lo quiero instalar de nuevo y ahora me manda un mensaje q dice q no se puede intalar porque hay una instlacion en curso se comiensa a llenar la barra cuando de repente sale este mensage la compu es windows xp y es una acer mini si me respondieran a como arreglarla lo agradeceria aaa lo formatie porque cada vez que iniciava el office comensaba un mensage q decia recuperando archivos lo cancelava y abria normal pero aveces demoraba en abrir y aora no se puede instalar
andre on June 14th, 2010 3:35 pm

WOW !
THX VERY 1000x MUCH !!!!!
LOVE YOU !
Anas on June 22nd, 2010 2:34 am

Thanks a bunch! Worked for my Office 2010 problem.
James Cruz on June 24th, 2010 3:24 pm

Thank you so so much for this write-up!! I wasted half my week trying to get my Office working. This fix worked PERFECTLY. Thank you very much for a great write-up!!!!!!!
Adam Nugent on July 8th, 2010 6:42 pm

Hi I’d just like to advise you of a link that will soon be dead.
The link you are sending people to for backing up their registry has moved from
http://www.adamsdvds.co.uk/tutorials/vista/regedit/backup.php
to
http://www.pcruneasy.com/tutorials/vista/regedit/backup.php

I have redesigned the whole site and changed the domain to a more fitting on in the process, so if you could change the link I would be very grateful

Regards
Adam Nugent
DJ on July 16th, 2010 11:25 pm

Hey you are GENIUS ! Thank you )))
Rajeev Kumar on July 25th, 2010 6:09 am

Hi,
It worked !!!.Well it did not go as smooth but then i was not doing as this page says(run the command prompt under administrator).Thank you so much for saving my time .

rajeev
Mark on July 29th, 2010 7:26 am

Hi Andy

After MUCH searching on sites for ways that work & battling for days, to try resolve my Administrator Reg Permissions loss problem on Windows 7, caused buy a bad Office 07 installer, I found & used your procedure & it worked like a DREAM!!! & all’s well on my PC again

I cannot thank you enough but THANKS anway!
Mark (Cape Town-South Africa)