Office programs keep wanting access to internet

Hello all at BBS,
If I use my computer offline all the office products load up and function fine. However, if I'm online and I need to run an application (word, excel or powerpoint), the firewall (Zone Alarm)tells me they are trying to access the internet and whether to allow them or not. If I deny access, then it takes forever for them to load up, it appears they're off searching for a file or something else to load.

Now you may think I'm a little paranoid here, but I'm not keen to give a program access to places I have no control over. But it's a real pain having to wait for ages to use an office program if you deny it access to the internet.

I wrongly thought there would be an option in office to select whether to give these programs access to the internet - if there is I can't find it. I've done a bit of a search in google but couldn't find anything specific except for something at the Gibson research site called "Network Bondage" It was related to NT so I fired off an email to their support and received a reply saying they may update this in the future to suit XP but not sure when. I'm not even sure whether after doing this procedure if in fact it would disable office's access, but it seemed as though it would - but it's a rather complex procedure.

After all that has anyone experienced the same problem and found a cure?

Hope someone can help

Harvey2004

 

Hi Harvey2004, and welcome to the forum.
I've used Office 2000, XP and now 2003 and haven't experienced your problem. I'm wondering if you have some spyware/malware that is causing this unusual behavour, or maybe a virus. Are you running anti-spyware programmes such as Ad-aware and Spybot as well as updated antivirus?
If not download from the links in my sig. and immediately update them before doing a full system scan.
Others may suggest running hijack This, saving a log and copying it to this thread for interegation by HJ experts on the board.
http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html
Having said that, someone may have a very simple solution to your problem?

 

I too have noticed this behavior with Office 2000 on my Win 2K machine, except that blocking Office apps in Zone Alarm doesn't seem to affect how quickly they load or how well they work.

 

any more help on offer?

Hi guys,
Thanks for the feedback, I tend to be a little paranoid when it comes to viruses and spyware, so I regularly scan and update. I seldom get anything sinister appearing.

Is it likely the help files in office are wanting to get back to MS? Really would like some help on this one as it seems to have many people stumped!

Harvey

 

All MS apps (I use Office Premium 2000) want to connect to the net. I don't think MS should be told everytime I want to write a letter, and I block them all with Norton. Is there a "program access control" in your Zone Alarm?

I have not noticed a delay, however, opening the programs with access blocked. I think Steve is right- they just want to touch base with home to see if any updates are available, etc. but I border on the edge of paranoia, too, so I don't permit the communication.

Johanna

 

Is any of this help to solve my problem?

When I was on dial up I allowed access to Symantec products because I thoght they could be trusted -Anti Virus and all that. These were the ones I gave program access to the internet to: AppServices, Common Client CC App, Live Update engine Com module. Since switching to cable recently, two more have requested access, which I have done but don't know why they weren't active in dial up. The new Symantec requests are: Norton Anti Virus Scanner module and Symantec Integrator.

Any of this help?

 

Symantec released an update this week that required a reboot. Run Live Update and then follow the prompts. Allow Symantec to do whatever it wants. That redirector is important- make sure you get it, and enable its online access.

Johanna

 

If using Office 2003 and you have Word open with the 'Task Pane' visible and then you select 'Help' (either from the toolbar or the drop down list in the task pane), there is an option called 'Online content settings' in the task pane. There you'll find an option available to stop Office from 'searching for online content when connected'.
Office also uses the internet to locate solutions when you are searching 'Help' for answers. I don't feel that Microsoft is doing anything *covert* here and the online help system always has access to the most recent KB's and other info. HTH

B

 

G'Day Mr B,

I don't know whether you'll pickup on this message, I thought the thread was dead as I never received an email alert of your response.

Now I've enable the task pane but can't find anything to do with online content. Checking the version of Word I find it's 2002 - so I guess I'm sunk!!!!

Things were looking promising but!!

Any other ideas?

Harvey

 

If you don't want Office to connect to the net, use your firewall to block it. I do, and there are no "side effects ".

Johanna

 

Harvey,
I've searched high and low in Word 2002 and I can't find a way to keep Word from accessing the web. My copy of Word 2002 does not seem to try and access the web on start up.
I'll keep looking and if I run across something I will let you know... maybe someone else can come up with some ideas.

B

 

Thanks people for responding, I'm using the freeware version of Zone Alarm and have totally blocked access to Word Excel and Powerpoint. If I try to run them or open a file requiring them it's a long wait unless I give them access.

Don't know whether this is relevant or not, each time I start Word Excel etc, it does a virus scan it that usual or has Norton antivirus joined up with Office to do this, and could this be the source of my problem?

Harvey

 

By default Norton will scan all Office files at each opening unless you tell it not to. The place to select that option varies with the version of Norton you have, but a click on Help ought to show it. If you get a lot of documents through other people, you may want to tolerate the delay, for safety.

Johanna

 

Will follow up on this one and let you know, if this is the cause of the problem I'll leave things as they are. I just want to know once and for all what's causing this!!

Harvey

 

Johanna, - eureka - success at last!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It took a bit of finding in Norton AV, but there was an option to turn on/off office plugin, turned it off and immediate access to the application.

Now another question which I'm sure you can answer. If I have a stand alone computer, very rarely use files from an unknown origin, have NAV to scan incoming and outgoing emails and attachments, do I need to have the NAV plugins for office set? Also if NAV is doing a virus scan of the application, (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc), why then does the application request access to the internet and not NAV?

Harvey

 

Harvey2004,
Two separate things here!

If you are mainly working with your own documents, you can disable the "scan office plug ins" in Norton without worrying about it. Any file you happen to come by that you lack confidence in, just right click on it and let Norton scan it.

The Office applications are trying to access the net because that's what they were designed to do. When you are offline, the AV is trying to connect to the net, and so is the Office application, and the delay may be from both of those programs trying to resolve a connection that isn't available. Like I said, I block Office with the firewall with no problems.

Johanna

 

Thanks Johanna,
Your blood's worth bottling as we say here in Australia!

You have no idea how long I've been trying to resolve this issue and the number of sites/forums I've posted to to try and get answers.

Hope somebody does something nice for you soon

Cheers

Ron

 

Glad to be of help! You're very welcome.

But I'm not sure if my "blood is worth bottling "- they've been drawing so much of it lately at the hospital, I may run out!

Johanna