The Office 2000 Client Platform

Requirements for Office Web Components

Microsoft Office Web Components are a collection of ActiveX controls that make many of the features of Microsoft Access databases and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, PivotTables, and charts available in HTML documents opened in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

When users open an HTML document containing Office Web Components in Internet Explorer, they can interact with information on the page. For example, they can sort, filter, and enter values for formula calculations in the Spreadsheet component. Web pages created in Access that use the Office Web Components are called data access pages.

Systems requirements for Office Web Components

To use HTML documents that contain the Spreadsheet, PivotTable, or Chart components, users need Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.01 or later running on Microsoft Windows 95/98 or Windows NT Workstation 4.0 or later.

To create a data access page with Access or to browse a data access page, users need Internet Explorer 5 or later.

Note   HTML documents that contain Office Web Components do not run in Netscape Navigator because Navigator does not support ActiveX controls.

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License requirements for Office Web Components

Users must own an Office 2000 license in order to browse a Web page interactively using Office Web Components.

Organizations that own an Enterprise, Select, or Maintenance Agreement for Office 2000 and who plan to deploy Office 2000 in phases can allow early adopters of Office 2000 to share component-based Web pages with users who have not yet installed Office 2000. They do this by enabling auto-downloading of the Office Web Components through Internet Explorer’s built-in component installer. This method of deploying Office Web Components is for internal corporate use only, and cannot be used through firewalls over the Internet.

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Deploying Office Web Components over an intranet

Office 2000 users create interactive Web pages with the Office Web Components in Excel by saving a worksheet as a Web page (File menu, Save as Web Page command) and then making it interactive (Publish button).

To create a data access page in Access, users click Pages under Objects in the Database window, and then click the New button.

Office Web Components can also be added to Web pages created in Microsoft FrontPage by using the Office Spreadsheet, Office PivotTable, or Office Chart commands (Insert menu, Component submenu).

Web pages that use Office Web Components contain HTML OBJECT tags that specify which Office Web Components to load when the page is opened. If the components are already installed on the user’s computer, the page opens and is interactive when the user opens the page using Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Office Web Components are automatically installed by Office 2000 Setup. If a user has not yet run Office 2000 Setup and your organization owns an Enterprise, Select, or Maintenance Agreement for Office 2000, the user can download the components from the corporate intranet the first time a Web page containing Office Web Components is opened.

Specifying the download location for Office Web Components

To specify the download location for Office Web Components, a Web page author uses the Web Options dialog box in Excel to specify the path to the Msowc.cab file that is used to install the Office Web Components.

To specify the Office Web Components download location

1. On the Excel Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab.
2. Click Web Options, and then click the Files tab.
3. Select Download Office Web Components.
4. In the Location box, specify the path to the Msowc.cab file using the following format:

   file:\\PathToOfficeInstallServer\msowc.cab

By default, the Download Office Web Components option is selected, and the path specified in the Location box is set to the server from which the Web page author installed Office 2000. To turn this behavior off or change the download location, set this option by using the Profile Wizard with the Custom Installation Wizard

Tip   A Web page developer can also specify the path to download Office Web Components by editing the HTML code for a page that contains an Office Web Component and setting the CODEPAGE attribute of the OBJECT tag that specifies which component to load. The CODEBASE attribute must use the same format used in the Web Options dialog box. For example,
CODEBASE= "file:\\MyOfficeInstallServer\Office2000\msowc.cab".

Installing Office Web Components

When Internet Explorer opens a Web page that contains Office Web Components, and the components are not installed on the user’s computer, Internet Explorer checks the CODEBASE attribute of the OBJECT tag that specifies the component. If the user’s security settings permit, Internet Explorer downloads the Office Web Components installer file (Msowc.cab), unpacks it, and launches the Web Installer control.

The Web Installer control prompts the user to confirm that he or she owns a valid Office 2000 license and to accept the Office End User License Agreement. If the user does not confirm, the Web Installer displays the Office Web Components watermark on the page and exits. The page is not interactive. To install the Office Web Components later, the user can click the watermark, and the Web Installer runs again.

The Web Installer is an ActiveX control that runs the Windows installer. It is set to be downloaded from the root directory of an Office 2000 installation server on a network file share. If necessary, it installs or upgrades the Windows installer by running Instmsi.exe from the MSI folder on the Office installation server. Then the Web Installer calls the Windows installer and runs the Office Web Components package file, Msowc.msi, which it looks for in the same root directory. The Windows installer actually installs and registers the Office Web Components and Microsoft Data Access Components.

Redirecting users who cannot run Office Web Components

If a user opens a Web page that relies on the Office Web Components and cannot run them, the following text and a hyperlink to the Microsoft Office Web site is displayed in the page:

“To use this Web page interactively, you must have Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 or later and the Microsoft Office Web Components. See the Microsoft Office Web site for more information.”

This text is defined in the ALT-HTML section of the OBJECT tag used to specify an Office Web Component. Both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator display this text if they cannot run a component on a page.

You can customize this text, by creating and setting the MissingComponentText value entry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet subkey in the Windows registry.

If the MissingComponentText value already exists, its text is written in the ALT-HTML section of the OBJECT tag for an Office Web Component when it is added to a Web page. You can embed hyperlinks in this text to direct users to other Web pages in your company by using standard HTML.

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See also

For more information about using Office Web Components, see Adding Interactive Web Controls to Office Documents.

You can use systems policies to specify the download path for Office Web Components or to prevent users from downloading the Office Web Components. For more information, see Managing Office Web Components.