2. TOP TIPS: INSTALLING OFFICE 2000 SERVICE PACK 3
Bravo, Microsoft!

I don't get to say that very often, so permit me to repeat
myself.

Bravo, Microsoft!

If you use Office 2000 (and a very large percentage of you
WOWsers do), Microsoft's Office 2000 Service Pack 3 rolls
up all of the outstanding fixes, but it includes Registry
over-rides of the inflexible, wretched, draconian "e-mail
attachment security update" that kept many of you (and me!)
from applying Service Pack 2.

Three months ago, back in WOW 7.39, I wrote: "...the only
reason why I DON'T recommend Office 2000 Service Pack 2 is
the botched draconian email security update. Installing
Office 2000 Service Pack 2 prevents Outlook from showing
you many files that are attached to email messages. If
Microsoft would only fix things in Service Pack 3 so Ken
Slovak's ATTOPT utility could allow us to see all the files
attached to email messages, I'd be a happy camper. Whaddya
say, Redmond?"

And, lo and behold!, Office 2000 Service Pack 3 *is* fixed.
Ken has just posted an updated version of ATTOPT that works
with Office 2000 SP-3, Office XP, and the Office 11 beta.
It's at
http://www.slovaktech.com/attachment...ownloadEnglish
.

Peter Deegan (who has won several awards for his Office
Service Pack coverage) will have a full roundup of Service
Pack 3 and its in's and out's later this month in WOW.
There's one immediate warning, though, that I wanted to get
out, ASAP.

Almost a year ago, in WOW 7.02
(http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/ar...ate.asp?v7-n02
), I told you that it was possible to bypass the draconian
email security update in Office 2000 SP-2 by editing a file
called outllib.dll. There were specific instructions for
hacking outllib floating around on the Web. There was also
a tantalizing site put together by someone calling himself
(er, herself) "Lara Croft" that contained a program he/she
called the "Outlook 2000/98 Insecurity Post Patch". The
Patch scanned your outllib.dll file, adding and removing
references to the file name extensions that the draconified
version of Outlook blocks. It was a great piece of
software, obviously written by a 'Softie... er, by someone
who had intimate, first-hand knowledge of the details of
the draconian patch.

At the time, I warned you not to use it. Now I know why. <sigh>

A good friend of mine, who has a hacked outllib.dll, sent
me this cautionary note, after installing SP-3: "I couldn't
figure out why I was going to 100% CPU ~25 seconds after
launching Outlook, until I replaced the patched DLL with
the original. Blammo. Back to normal."

So if you hacked your outllib.dll, I sure hope you have a
copy of the original handy! Over-write the hacked
outllib.dll with the original BEFORE you install the SP-3
update.

I won't say I toldja so, but...

From
From Woody's Ofice Watch