W2K3 Terminal Services: Word error: An error occurred and this feature is no longer functioning properly

The main Office install is done via Computer GPO (assign) for the workstations. The terminal server is on a domain controller (we only have 2 servers altogether) which is in a different OU, and doesn't install Office, which I did manually. But I will look to see if there is a problem with the User GPOs. Presumably, I could put some user settings in the TS OU, and specify 'enforced' so that when a user is on the TS he gets those settings, and his normal ones when on a workstation? Do they need to be different? Will leave another comment when I have checked this out. Thanks for the suggestion. Happy New Year.

Enforced wouldn't work.  Unless you also employ the loopback then the GPO won't affect the user (their account isn't in the OU).

You're Office GPO is done properly and should not affect the TS profile.  You aren't redirecting the TS session profiles to the normal user account profile directories - are you?

Happy New Year to you also.

Er, yes, I am redirecting TS profile to normal account profile. It seems I know even less about TS than I thought! For normal workstation access, I map drive P: to \\server\users\thisuserdir for the home folder, and the profile path to \\server\profiles\thisuserdir. The users have roaming profiles, and we have the same software installed on all workstations, so that they can log on to any one and see the same stuff.

I wanted users connecting from home to use RDC to connect to the terminal server, and get the same experience as if logged on to a workstation on site. So, I set the user profile path and home folder to the same values as for a normal session. I take it that is wrong? The profile is probably no big deal; I can presumably set up a default TS profile similar to the standard one. It would be a problem if users didn't have the same home folder, though, as they will no doubt want to operate on their files as normal.

It's not necessarily wrong to redirect the TS profile to the regular roaming profile, but the software you're running in the TS session needs to be setup exactly the same.  The Global Template that Word is complaining about is actually the file NORMAL.DOT.

Make sure you setup the Template location as the same place in both the TS session and the regular profile.  You can set this using the Office Resource Kit - which contains the ADM templates you need to import into a GPO to set Office options.

Sorry for delay in following up, but I have been trying a few things.

Shep: I tried that. I gave a user 'Administrators' permission, and the error alert went away. But it came back when I took the permission away. We have 300 users with a turnover of 50%/year, so it wasn't going to be an attractive option anyway!

Netman66: I did the biz with a loopback GPO, but the error alert still occurs for non-admin users.
I have set the home directory and profiles in TS by GPO to be the same as for normal workstation login. As far as I can see, everything works (IE7, Thunderbird Mail, Excel, Powerpoint, Publisher) except for Word.

But wait - there's more! For TS users (only), I get US language as default. I found a KB article, ostensibly for NT4 TS Edition, but it seems to apply to Server 2003. It fixed the language problem (but not the error alert). Article is Q257964 "Cannot Change Input Locale to Australia or NZ on WTS Client". The big problem with the fix is that you have to make a registry change to ALL the TS Clients, as well as the Server, which is unattractive as the idea was to have people use their home computer to gain access. It seems that non-windows clients, (I tried an iMAC) don't communicate their locale, and so get the problem anyway. I fear that part is now as good as it's going to get. There is a simple workaround, in that the terminal session has EN on the status/language bar, which you can click on and choose 'English NZ' instead of the default 'English US'. Word uses this to set its language.

Apart from the error alert (non-admins), I get this strange symptom which I didn't mention before. It affects ALL users: When I start Word, it shows the Document Recovery window, specifying README [Original] last saved 9 Aug 2001. When I click 'Close', it says it can't find README (which is hardly surprising 6 years on). Word then behaves normally. If I close Word, then restart it, it behaves normally (except for the error alert). If I close and restart it again, the Document Recovery business starts again.

So, every 2nd activation of Word produces the Document Recovery problem for all; and every activation produces the error alert (for non-admins). Hmm! Anyone know where it might keep the reference to README? There is nothing in the nominated AutoRecover directory %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Word, but then if there were, it would have been able to open it!

I tried de-installing and re-installing Office on the TS. I've tried reinstalling manually via Add/Remove CP, and with a TSO GPO. I tried using the ORK tool to remove all previous versions (which it did, but left the current one inoperable!)

I then tried the Add/Remove CP 'repair' which made it all work again, but with the original problems remaining.

Since I didn't give all this info first time round, I think I should up the points a bit.

In summary: the system is just about usable, but I don't want to leave it like it is, or the phone will be buzzing all day with people reporting the alert and Document Recovery windows. Term starts Feb 7, so I should like to fix it by then.

Where was the Loopback policy linked?  Was the Term Server account in that OU?

Did you select Merge or Replace for the template?

In answer to Netman66: The hierarchy of containers (and GPOs) was:
Domain (Default Domain Policy)
    Domain Controllers (Default Domain Controllers Policy)
        Kirkserv
        ICTserve
    DomainComputers (Domain Computers)
        <hierarchy of workstations,laptops,etc>
    DomainUsers (DomainUsers)
        <hierarchy of user organisation>

Now it is:
Domain (Default Domain Policy)
   Domain Controllers (Default Domain Controllers Policy)
       Kirkserv
       Terminal Servers (TerminalServer)
          ICTServe
    DomainComputers (Domain Computers)
        <hierarchy of workstations,laptops,etc>
    DomainUsers (DomainUsers)
        <hierarchy of user organisation>

I made an entry in the GPO TerminalServers>Computer Config>Admin>System>Group Policy: User Loopback [enabled]

I tried both Merge and Replace, but the result was the same (not surprising as there are no entries in the DomainUsers GPO for Office 2003).

Further results:
I de-installed Office on the TS yet again, and deleted everything I could find relating to it: Registry settings, files in Program FIles\Office etc. I then re-installed it. Praise be! The error alert has now gone for all users!

Remaining problem:
When you run Word from anywhere (admin or not, Terminal server user or Administrator login at the server console), the message about README appears on alternate activations. So... what is hanging around that remembers a file from 2001?  It appears that this is now not a TS or even W2K3 problem, but a residual Office problem. How should this be resolved/continued? I am a relative newcomer to EE, so would appreciate guidance.
   
           

You may want to open a question in the Applications (office) forum and link to this Q for reference.  This is certainly a weird one.