WD97: "A Program Is Trying to Access ..." Warning When You Send Mail Merge to E-mail After You Apply Outlook Security Update (264888)

SYMPTOMS

When you perform a mail merge in Microsoft Word 97 and send the results to electronic mail (e-mail), you receive the following warning:

A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this?

If this is unexpected, it may be a virus and you should choose "No".

If you click Yes, you receive the following warning:

A program is trying to automatically send e-mail on your behalf. Do you want to allow this?

If this is unexpected, it may be a virus and you should choose "No"."

NOTE: This behavior occurs whether you are running Microsoft Outlook in Internet Mode Only (IMO) or in Corporate Workgroup (CW) mode.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs if you have installed the Outlook E-mail Security Update. The Outlook E-mail Security Update provides additional levels of protection against malicious e-mail messages. The update changes the way that Outlook handles attachments and the way that Outlook can be controlled programmatically.

For additional information about this update, please see one of the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, depending on which version of Outlook you have:

262631 OL2000: Information About the Outlook E-mail Security Update

262617 OL98: Information About the Outlook E-mail Security Update

This behavior of the Microsoft Word Mail Merge to E-mail feature is by design when the Outlook E-Mail Security Update is installed.

MORE INFORMATION

The Word for Windows Mail Merge feature can output merged documents in the following formats:

Printer
New document
Electronic fax (if installed)
Electronic mail (if installed)

REFERENCES

For more information about the mail merge feature, click Contents and Index on the Help menu, click the Index tab in Word Help, type the following text

mail merge

and then double-click the selected text to go to the "mail merge" topic. If you are unable to find the information you need, ask the Office Assistant.