You cannot publish Internet free/busy information if you use an FTP site (307034)

Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows registry

SYMPTOMS

When you try to publish your free/busy information to a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) site, you may receive the following error message:

An unexpected error occurred: Not enough memory available to complete the operation. Close other programs to make more memory available, and then try again.

When you click OK in the error message, you receive the following error message:

An error occurred publishing your Internet free/busy data.
Write operation failed at URL: "ftp://<username>:<password>@<ftp-server-name>/<path>/xxxxx.vfb"

The previous error message occurs regardless of the authentication method set on the FTP server.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office XP. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307841 How to obtain the latest Office XP service pack

NOTE: After this fix is applied, users who require authentication still experience this problem although they set the username and password in the FTP Uniform Resource Locator (URL) string. This fix permits you to publish if an anonymous authentication is used, but you cannot publish with an embedded username and password.

WORKAROUND

If you must pass username and password credentials to the FTP location, use the following method to work around this problem:

Start Outlook 2002.
On the File menu, point to Open, and then click Outlook Data File.
In the Look in a drop-down list box, click Add/Modify FTP Locations.
In the Add/Modify FTP Locations dialog box, enter the name of the FTP site and the username and password information, and then click Add.
Click OK to close the Add/Modify FTP Locations dialog box.
Click Cancel to close the Open Outlook Data File dialog box.
On the Tools menu, click Options.
Click Calendar Options, and then click Free/Busy Options.
Click Publish at my location, and then enter the URL for the FTP location by using a format that is similar to the following example:
ftp://ftp-server-name/path/filename.vfb
Click OK three times.
On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, and then click Free/Busy Information.

NOTE: The password for the FTP credentials is only cached during the Microsoft Outlook session. If you quit and then restart Outlook 2002, you must re-enter your password for the FTP location in the Add/Modify FTP Locations dialog box. This limitation also applies to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.

MORE INFORMATION

If you install the fix that is described in the "Resolution" section of this article, and then run a Microsoft Word macro that saves a document to a FTP location that requires authentication, you receive the following error message

Run-time error '5253':

Word did not save the document.
(filename)

where filename is the file name that you specified in the Word macro.

To resolve this Word macro problem, you must turn off the fix that you installed in the "Resolution" section of this article. Follow these steps to turn off the fix:

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

Start Registry Editor.
Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Common\
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
Modify the new DWORD value to the following parameters:
Value name: UseAlternateShowUIMethodForFtpSession Value data: 1
Quit Registry Editor.
Quit and then restart Word.

NOTE: If the UseAlternateShowUIMethodForFtpSession DWORD value is set to 1, you receive the error messages that were mentioned in the "Symptoms" section of this article when you try to publish your free/busy information. You must change the value to 0 to successfully publish your free/busy information to the FTP server.