OFF97: Q&A: What Is the OSA and What Does It Do?

ID: Q165071


The information in this article applies to:


SUMMARY

This article answers some of the frequently asked questions regarding the Office Startup Application (OSA). This article is divided into the following sections:


MORE INFORMATION

What Is the OSA?

The OSA is a program that improves the performance of Microsoft Office 97 programs. The Microsoft Office 97 Setup program places a shortcut to the OSA in the Windows StartUp folder.

What Does the OSA Do?

OSA is responsible for doing the following:

What Are the Advantages of Running the OSA?

The OSA initializes the shared code that is used by the Microsoft Office 97 programs. The benefit of using the OSA to initialize shared code is that the Microsoft Office 97 programs start faster. If the Microsoft Office 97 programs initialize shared code (instead of the OSA), the time it takes for the program to start increases.

Can I remove the OSA?

You can safely remove the OSA without causing the Microsoft Office 97 programs to fail. However, if you remove the OSA, you no longer benefit from the performance advantages that are provided by running the OSA.

Additional Information

You can use several command line switches with Osa.exe. These switches are listed in the following table.
Switch Description
-b This switch is used for fast starting. It initializes Automation and fonts. Note that this is the default switch.
-f This switch opens the Open Office Document dialog box at startup.
-n This switch opens the New Office Document dialog box at startup.
-s This switch starts the specified screen saver at startup. Note that if there is no screen saver selected in the Display control panel item, you receive a message stating this.

Additional query words: OFF97


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

Last Reviewed: May 25, 1999