This document provides complementary or late-breaking information. You can also check OfficeUpdate on the Microsoft Web site for the latest information.
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HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT
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To view the Readme file on-screen in Windows Notepad, maximize the Notepad window and click Word Wrap on the Edit menu. To print the Readme file, open it in Notepad or another word processor, and then use the Print command on the File menu.
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CONTENTS
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1. Using the Tool from the Command Line
2. Using this Tool with the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch
3. Known Issues
3.1. Cannot install tool on Windows Terminal Server
3.2. The Last Modified date is changed for each repaired file
3.3. Office documents embedded in other documents are not repaired
3.4. No progress indicator when run from the command line
3.5. HTTP and FTP directories not supported
3.6. Instruction text in tool is cut off on some Arabic and Hebrew systems
3.7. The start directory cannot be read-only
1. Using the Tool from the Command Line
The executable that corresponds to the Microsoft Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool is called PROPFIX.EXE. By default, it is installed into your Program Files directory, in a directory called "PropFix". It can be run from the command line with the following arguments:
/c Check for the existence of unique identifiers on documents,
but don't try to remove them
/f filename Run the tool against the specified document
/d dirname Run the tool on all the documents in the specified directory
/l logname Specifies a log file for results
/r Recursively examine all folders in the specified directory
If you have set the /r flag, you also need to specify a folder with the /d flag.
If /l is omitted, then results are written to "propfix.log"
Note that wildcards aren't allowed for either filename or dirname.
Also note that when PROPFIX.EXE is run from the command line, no alerts get raised. You can check the log file after executing the command to review the results.
2. Using this Tool with the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch
This tool removes the unique identifiers from existing Office 97 documents. To prevent Office 97 from writing unique identifiers into future documents, you need to apply the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch as well. This patch can be found on OfficeUpdate.
3. Known Issues
3.1. Cannot install tool on Windows Terminal Server
To install the tool on a Windows Terminal Server installation, first install it to your local machine, and then copy PROPFIX.EXE from c:\Program Files\PropFix\ to a directory on the Windows Terminal Server machine. You can then create a shortcut on the start menu to the tool.
3.2. The Last Modified date is changed for each repaired file
When the tool removes the unique identifier from a file, it has to change the Last Modified date. If you use a document management tool or some other synchronization service that depends on Last Modified date, after running the tool you may see alerts that files are out of sync or out of date. However, the only change that this tool makes is to remove the unique identifier. To minimize these alerts, just run the tool against the backup version (or shadow copy) of the file, and then apply the change to the main document storage.
3.3. Office documents embedded in other documents are not repaired
If you have embedded an Office 97 document into another document, the tool cannot repair the embedded document. To remove the unique identifier from the embedded document, first apply the unique identifier patch to Office 97 (also on the OfficeUpdate web site). Then open the containing document in Office 97, and open the embedded document. Close that embedded document, and then close the containing document, saving changes. This will remove the unique identifier from the embedded document.
3.4. No progress indicator when run from the command line
To support silent operation of the tool in batch mode, all progress indicators are suppressed when the tool is run from the command line. If you're running the tool on windows 95, the command prompt will pause while the command is executing. If you're running the tool on Windows NT, you can use the task manager to check the progress of the tool.
3.5. HTTP and FTP directories not supported
You can't repair documents in HTTP or FTP directories with this tool. To repair documents in these directories, you'll need to download the documents to a local directory, run the tool, and then upload the repaired documents.
3.6. Instruction text in tool is cut off on some Arabic and Hebrew systems
Due to certain display problems, the instruction text in the tool is cut off on some Arabic and Hebrew systems. The full instruction text is "Choose a location containing Microsoft Office 97 documents. All documents in and below this location will have their unique identifiers removed."
3.7. The start directory cannot be read-only
If you choose to start the tool in a directory that is read-only, any Office 97 documents that are in read/write directories below the read-only directory will not be repaired. You can either change the top directory to read/write, or you can start the tool on the individual read/write directories below the read-only directory.
