Unable to load MS Organization Chart - Solution

The Microsoft Organization chart component of Microsoft office is not designed to be used in an environment where users run it without administrative privileges. We encountered this issue in the version that ships with Microsoft Office 2000. Everytime you try to either edit an organizational chart in a PowerPoint presentation or other Office document, you get the error "Unable to load MS Organization Chart". This error is given because the program is unable to modify certain files in the Windows folder.

I've actually had different results when performing this fix on Windows 2000 vs Windows XP. In Windows XP the fix is as follows:

• Log in as a local administrator.
• Run the file ORGCHART.EXE (usually found in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OrgChart)
• Give the "Users" group write permission to the files: C:\Windows\MSOClip.232 and C:\Windows\MSOPrefs.232
• Log out and log back in as the user and it should now work.

In Windows 2000, this solution may or may not work. The paths will be different (C:\Winnt instead of C:\Windows), but the files should still be there. We have encountered a Windows 2000 system on which this doesn't work because the MSOClip.232 file is constantly deleted and recreated by the software and therefore the permissions change doesn't stick. To work around this you would need to give the user write permission to the C:\WINNT folder or add them to the "Power users" group. This is obviously less than ideal, so if you can think of a better solution, please share your idea with us using the comment system below.

NOTE: If you are using Office 2003, Microsoft has new organization chart application which you can download and install. We haven't tested the new version, but we're assuming it doesn't have this same issue.

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