When viewing a document in a sandboxed Word 2007 I get the following error:
Word cannot complete the save due to a file permission error. (C:\...\Template.dotm)

I don't have any File Access restrictions to any files or directories.

Any suggestions?

Which version of Sandboxie are you using?

Assuming a recent version of Sandboxie and Word, I have Winword.exe in the start run setting and also go to resource access>file access>direct access and add this.

%AppData%\Microsoft\templates\Normal.dotm


That should solve your problem.

Pete

I tried both the 3.38 and 3.39.17 versions with the same results.

I don't want to use the direct access method since this defeats the reason of using sandboxie. I checked the sandbox directory structure and I can see that sandboxie has copy Normal.dotm in the proper directory and the permissions look correct.

Unfortunately I'm not getting this problem. My Word 2007 running sandboxed opens files smoothly. Any suggestions what I could do to help me reproduce the problem?

Hi Tzuk

What I found when I first tried Word in Sandboxie, was even though it was the Normal.dotm might have been copied to the sandbox, word couldn't find it there, and so closing word was a pain. I just gave it direct access to the file where it's located. Solved the problem, and didn't strike me as having any risk in doing this.

Pete

I guess this will have to wait for me to be able to reproduce the problem.

For me the error shows up when saving a file ('save' or 'save as'). Peter's fix resolves the issue.


A suggestion would be to try saving a file (but you may well have tried that already).

Hmm, I would be highly reluctant to give direct access to the global template... Do you guys know why Word wants to save your normal.dotm all the time? I've seen this on other computers when normal.dotm is infected with a macro virus, although Microsoft mentions other possible culprits.


Same here. But Peter's fix doesn't work for me, which is unsurprising since my error messages always cite the document itself, not normal.dotm.

Long ago, Mitch mentioned that one could avoid save errors by setting OpenFilePath to the location of the Word document. I've been setting something similar, although I'm not really satisfied with it - here's a generalized version without paths:

For documents on my system drive, only the .doc exclusion is necessary. On other drives, the .tmp exclusions must also be added - I'm not sure what's different. The particular .tmp files above are created in the same directory as the document.

BTW, this Microsoft kb gives some good background on the multi-step write-delete-move process that Word uses to save. For a summary, scroll down to "A simplified view of the scheme used to save an edited file".

tzuk, can you reproduce the save problem?

1. Create a blank document, test.doc, on your desktop.
2. Open test.doc in a sandbox with default settings.
3. Make a change and click the save button. You should get the message: "Word cannot complete the save due to a file permission error. (C:\Users\mike\Desktop\test.doc)".

Sandboxie 3.43.14 and Word 2007 SP2 on Windows 7 x86.

I follow your steps, but I don't have this problem with sandboxed Word 2007 SP2 on Windows XP. But try with version 3.43.17, I fixed a minor issue with how sandboxed file rename works, and I remember from past experience that Word really likes renaming files, so it might make a difference.

tzuk, works like a charm. This makes me very happy.