OFF95: AutoCorrect Entries Fail to Appear

When you click AutoCorrect on the Tools menu in an Office program, the text AutoCorrect entries fail to appear in the AutoCorrect dialog box. However, some AutoCorrect entries that are not text-based appear in the AutoCorrect dialog box in Microsoft Word.

This behavior occurs when the following conditions are true:

• Your computer is running Windows NT, version 3.51, and you log on as the Administrator of the computer.
  
  -and-
• You install Microsoft Office for Windows 95.
  
  -and-
• You log off the computer, and then log on to the computer as a member of the Users or Guests group as defined in the User Manager tool.
  
  -and-
• You start an Office program, and you click AutoCorrect on the Tools menu.

This problem occurs because, as a member of the Users or Guests group, you do not have permission to write the AutoCorrect key in the registry. This problem also occurs if you log on to the computer as a member of any group except the Administrators group.

This problem does not occur if you use Windows 95 because the Windows 95 security model does not attach permissions to registry entries.

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall Windows NT. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the Changing Keys And Values online Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). Note that you should make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat) before you edit the registry.

To work around this problem, use the registry editor to give the user permissions to the AutoCorrect key in the registry before you log on to the computer as a user. To do this, use the following steps:

1. Log on to the computer as the Administrator of the computer.
2. Double-click the Windows NT desktop to bring up the Task List dialog box.
3. In the New Task box, type regedt32, and press ENTER.
4. On the Window menu, click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
5. Open the following key:

          Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\AutoCorrect
   						

6. Double-click the AutoCorrect subkey to select it.
7. On the Security menu, click Permissions.
8. In the Names list, click Everyone.
9. In the Type Of Access list, click Full Control, and click OK.
10. In the Registry Key Permissions dialog box, select the Replace Permission on Existing Subkeys check box, and click OK.

When you log on to the computer as a user, you must remove the AutoCorrect key in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER on Local Machine and remove the blank AutoCorrect file (ACL). To do this, use the following steps:

1. Log on to the computer as the User of the computer.
2. Double-click the Windows NT desktop to bring up the Task List dialog box.
3. In the New Task box, type regedt32 and press ENTER.
4. On the Window menu, click HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
5. Open the following key:

         Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Office\95\AutoCorrect
   						

6. Delete this key.
7. On the Registry menu, click Exit.
8. Start File Manager and delete the AutoCorrect file in the directory where Windows NT is installed. The file name includes your login name and has an .acl extension, for example the file may have a name similar to User000.acl.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

When you install Office, the Setup program installs the AutoCorrect "base" file, Msoffice.acl in the directory in which you installed Windows NT. In addition, the location is written to the following location in the registry: When you start an Office program, the program searches the following key for user AutoCorrect .acl file: If the user's .acl file does not exist, the program attempts to copy and rename the "base" file to the user .acl file.

NOTE: If you install multiple versions of Microsoft Office, there may be multiple user .acl files in the Windows directory.