Online access denied?

Hi all, long time since I've been here!

Using Office Pro 2003, on Windows XP Pro, all SP's installed.

Somewhere during update installs, I've lost functionality in any Office program that would access the internet. I.e., "Microsoft Office Online,", "Check for Updates," or "contact us" along with hyperlinks in email [delivery tracking notices], Office "templates online" and others.

In Word, the "Office Online" and "updates menu items are greyed out. In Outlook "Microsoft Office Online" is grey, but when "check for updates" is selected, I get the error message..."This operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator."

Other than updates and service packs, I've adjusted no web settings. Any ideas? MS live assistance could only offer a complete reinstall, which I'd rather avoid for obvious reasons.

Funny you should say that... my lappie just started exhibiting this behaviour... wonder if it's a side effect of a security update?

From inside one of these offending apps try clicking help, then look for "Select Customer Feedback Options " then in that bit there's an option 'online content' .. last time I did some office updates, all the little ticks in this bit had vanished & my machine was behaving as described ;)

Hey Noo and 'Ed, thanks for the input.

Two minutes before I checked WD, I found the solution.

And Noo, I too think it was related to an update.

I'd been using dual browsers, IE very rarely, and Firefox most often. After a series of Windows and Office updates, I lost [out of the blue] the funtionality mentioned in my original post. I'd checked everything I could think of, including Ed's suggestion.

Turns out that somewhere during the updates, my selection of Firefox as default browser had been turned off. I had no browser then selected as default, which caused all the problems.

Went to control panel>add remove programs>set program access and defaults>custom...and there I found that neither browser was checked as default. Checked Firefox again, and all is well.

Noo, I wonder if this would help your laptop issue? Thanks again both of you, and Happy New Year from across the pond!

& a Happy New year to you too Len, from this side of the pond ! :thumbs:

Glad you fixed it & maybe this can help Noo, but I'm sure it'll help somebody eventually .. :)

That would make sense.. yup, click, fixed.... that will teach me to use two or three browsers...

Like others on this thread I suddenly lost rights to access web pages etc from Outlook, kept getting the same error message. Over the last couple of days my PC has been acting up and so I uninstalled Firefox, believing it to have become corrupt causing my PC to hang. I then received an email today and tried to access the link but got the error message. I did a repair on Outlook to no avail and thought that it was going to have to be a reimage as I couldn't understand why it would suddenly fail. Thankfully I Googled the message and ended up here and voila fixed!!
Many thanks Len you saved me a great deal of time and trouble :thumbs: :thumbs:

Hello David, glad to hear my solution worked for you, too. Also, welcome to WinDrivers. Based on a few year's experience with WD, I can tell you that this is the first place I stop when I'm up against a computer problem.

If a search function doesn't find your answer, there are a great bunch of helpful people around, willing to help you find solutions and/or brainstorm.