"Unable to connect to Microsoft Office Online"

[Dan]

Whenever I'm in any Microsoft Office 2003 Pro application and try to perform
a search the Search Results has "Unable to connect to Microsoft Office
Online" listed on top of the Task Pane. My anti-virus is Norton Internet
Security 2007. I checked the settings and all of the Office apps are set to
the Allow setting. I tried turning off the firewall and auto protect and
still unable to connect. I've worked with Microsoft some time ago on this
and gave up after spending way too much time on it. I've searched the
internet and haven't had any luck either. If I remember right, this all
started after I installed the Office 2007 version and then uninstalled it.
At that time I started having problems with Office 2003, so I had to
uninstall and reinstall it. I have both programs (Office 2003 and Norton N/S
2007) on my laptop and the online search works fine. Any input would be
greatly appreciated. Like I said, way too much time spent on this problem.

 

[Johnbes]

Hi Dan, This is JohnBes from Microsoft, I’m in the Office Assistance and
Worldwide Services team. I responded earlier this week to a similar thread
and wanted to make sure you saw the information. Here's a couple
troubleshooting tips to try first...

Try to insert some online clipart.
1. On 2007 ribbon apps like Word, XL,PPT click on the Insert menu => choose
Clip Art
a. On 2003 and non-ribbon apps, Insert = > Picture => Clipart…
2. Click on the “Search In†drop down of the Clipart Task Pane and make sure
“Web Collections†is checked.
3. Search for any common term like cat or bridge.
4. If an alert appears asking if you want to search for clips online, choose
Yes.
5. Online clipart should appear in your clipart taskpane. You’ll know its
online as they will have a tiny globe icon at the bottom left of the clipart
thumbnail.
6. Click on any online clip to insert into yoru document.

Also, make sure you can connect to Research sites from Word.
1. In Word 2007 choose the Review menu from the Ribbon and select Research
from the Proofing toolbar.
a. In Word 2003 select Tools => Research…
2. In the Reference dropdown at the top of the Research pane, select any
online listing in the “All Research Sites†category.
3. Search for any common term and make sure online results appear in the
results list.

If you haven’t recently, please delete your cookies, then restart
your system and check for connectivity.

Finally, browse to http://office.microsoft.com and
sign-out if you are currently signed in with your passport account. After
signing out, delete your cookies, restart your Office apps and try to connect
to online properties from the Office apps.
Note: You can tell if you are signed in or not by looking at the top right
of the Office.Microsoft.com home page. A status indicator will say either
"Sign In" (meaning your are NOT signed in) or "Sign Out" (meaning you are
signed in.)

I’ll be your main contact for tracking this issue through to completion.
Feel free to E-mail me at (e-mail address removed) anytime. If we can’t readily
figure out this problem with standard trouble shooting steps, I may ask a few
of you to download a shareware tool to detect client/server connectivity
traffic to help debug the issue.

Thanks,
John

 

[Dan]

Thanks for contacting me on this issue. I am able to lookup clipart, but when
I try to do Research, the only source that I have is Thesaurus:English
(U.S.). When I try to check Research options, the Thesaurus is the only one
in there. When I checked my laptop, it have seveal sources.

 

[Johnbes]

Hi Dan, Did you notice if you were logged in to Office.Microsoft.com? Also,
can you download a template from Office.Microsoft.com, try downloading
something like the calendar from
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC101945201033.aspx?pid=CT101425391033 into Word and let me know what happens.

Thanks,
John