OFF97: How and Why Unique Identifiers Are Created in Office Documents

ID: Q222180

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Office 97 for Windows
Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
Microsoft Word 97 for Windows
Microsoft PowerPoint 97 For Windows

SUMMARY

When you create a document in any of the programs listed above, a unique identifier may be created within the document.

This article explains how and why these unique identifiers are created in documents, and provides two methods you can use to remove unique identifiers from your Office documents.

MORE INFORMATION

How and Why Unique Identifiers Are Created in Office Documents

When you create a document in any of the programs listed above, the program generates a unique identifier, in the form of a number, which is stored within the structure of the document when you save it. The purpose of the unique identifier is to allow third-party tools to work with and reference documents created in Office programs.

There is no way to use the unique identifier to identify the author of a document without intimate knowledge of the personal computer on which the document was originally created. Since this information is available only to the owner of the computer, it is not possible to determine the author of a document simply by looking at the document itself.

Removing Unique Identifiers from Office Documents

Microsoft has developed two utilities that eliminate unique identifiers in documents created in Office programs:

The Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch prevents Office programs from inserting unique identifiers into new documents that you create.

The Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool is a utility that removes unique identifiers from existing documents that were created in Office. If you are concerned about the presence of a unique identifier in your documents, you can use this utility to remove the unique identifiers from your documents.

How to Download and Install the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch

NOTE: The Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch requires that you have Microsoft Office 97 SR-2 installed on your computer. If you do not already have Office 97 SR-2 installed, visit the following Web site:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/articles/sr2fact.htm

Download the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch, from the following Web site:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloaddetails/off97uip.htm

Click Download now!, and save the Off97uip.exe file to your Desktop.

To install the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch on your computer, follow these steps:

If you are running Office from a network drive, quit all running Office programs including the Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar and FindFast. To quit FindFast, open the Control Panel, double-click Find Fast, and then click Close And Stop on the Index menu.

Double-click the Off97uip.exe file on your Desktop and follow the on-screen instructions to install the patch.

When installation is complete, restart your computer.

To install the Office 97 Unique Identifier Patch on a network server that contains an administrative installation of Office, follow these steps:

Click Start, and click Run.

In Open, type:
```
C:\Windows\Desktop\Off97uip.exe /c:"Off97uip.exe /a" 
```
If necessary, change the path to reflect the actual location of the Off97uip.exe file.

Click OK. Follow the on-screen instructions to select the copy of Mso97.dll that is contained in your administrative installation and click Open.

Note that any user who has installed Office from this administrative installation should either:

Install the Unique Identifier Patch on their own computer, using the steps above

-or-

Reinstall Office from the administrative installation.

This will ensure that the Mso97.dll file is properly patched.

Once the patch has been installed, any new documents that you create in Office programs will not contain a unique identifier.

How to Download, Install, and Use the Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool

Download the Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool, from the following Web site:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloaddetails/pf_setup.htm

Click Download now! and save the Pf_setup.exe file to your Desktop.

To install the Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool, double-click the Pf_setup.exe file on your Desktop and follow the on-screen instructions.

To remove the unique identifier from a document created in Office 97, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to Programs, and then point to Microsoft Office Tools. Click Microsoft Office 97 Unique Identifier Removal Tool.

Select the folder that contains the Office documents you want to update and click OK. All documents in this folder, for example, C:\My Documents, and subfolders will have the unique identifiers removed from them.

Click OK when unique identifier removal is complete.

Details of unique identifier removal are stored in the file Propfix.log, located in the root folder of your hard disk.

For More Information

For more information about this issue, please see the following Microsoft Web site.

Letter to customers about this issue:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/03-08custletter2.htm

Q&A for customers about this issue:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/03-10qa.htm

Additional query words: OFF97 XL97 WD97 PP97


Keywords          : 
Version           : WINDOWS:97
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: July 12, 1999