Unable to run office programs as a non-administrator on a Windows Terminal Server

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Request Description:

The system has installed Office 2007 Small Business Edition on a Windows Terminal Server. When non-admin users attempt to launch Office applications in local and/or remote sessions, the following errors occur:

Word: “MS Office Word needs VBA macro language support to complete this action. An error occurred and this feature is no longer functioning properly. Please contact your system administrator.”

Outlook & Excel: “This feature is not available. For more information, contact your system administrator”.

Explanation:

This issue is similar to those in the past which have involved the installation of volume license versions of Office 2007, Windows Terminal Server, and retail (non-volume license) Office 2007 product/CD keys.

We confirmed that the Office 2007 product/CD key that the system has now is of the volume license type, but after performing the following steps and reinstalling with this key, the issues no longer occur:

  1. Ensure that all Office applications on the Terminal Server are closed, and remote users are disconnected.
  2. Uninstall Office 2007 via the Control Panel.
  3. "Cleaned up" remaining files and folders using the OffScrub07.vbs script (similar to the “FixIt” solution in KB971179)
  4. Rename the copy of opa12.dat (.old), located in the %PROGRAMDATA% \Microsoft\OFFICE\DATA folder. This file is related to licensing and activation in Office 2007.
  5. Use regedit to navigate to the following reg key and add “.old” to the Office 2007 Small Business Edition (SBE) GUID: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration\
  6. Reset the default file, folder, and registry permissions using the “FixIt” solution in KB313222.         

Thoughts are that the cause of this issue was due the presence of files and/or registry keys related to Office 2007 licensing, which were tied to retail, trial, or OEM versions of Office 2007. Removing Office 2007 and related files/reg keys, then reinstalling with a known volume license product key for Office 2007 resolved the issue.

More Information

How do I uninstall the 2007 Office suites if I cannot uninstall it by using the "Add or Remove Programs" feature?
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/971179 

Deploy the 2007 Office system on a Terminal Services-enabled computer
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179055.aspx