"There was an error opening this document. The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is i

Microsoft has released a hot fix KB943337 that resolves my problems (consistent with what has been reported here) with webdav and PDFs. You must request this fix it is not readily downloadable. Although this article talks to Office 2007 it has cleared up my problems with XP and Office 2003.

I hope this helps some of you, as this has been a very frustrating and time consuming resolution.

Reagrds,

Joe

I agree SLawson.

Today I found a third-party application that works. It opens PDFs with no problem.

It uses a network drive rather than what we're using...a web folder.

It's even better than using WebFolders (WebDAV) because it allows to create TXT files, word docs by simply right-clicking in the empty white space where as us web folders only allows folder creation thru the right-click prompt.

The problem is: It is not suitable solution because $800 is pretty steep. The trial works excellent > http://www.webdrive.com/products/webdrive/index.html
So you may want to use that route.

So then I became to think more ---- instead of using web folders let's use a network drive. In my case, it doesn't work because my site is secure and in XP I am unable to map a network drive to a secure web site that is using SharePoint.

I still am investigating to map a network drive to a secure site that requires authentication so PDFs can be opened in an explorer view.

"c:\documents and settings\xxxx\https:\yyyy.com\webdav\index.php\\zzz\file.pdf"

Where xxxx is the Windows user name and
yyyy is the website name and
zzz is the username

No special charatecters in there.

It seems as though it is picking up the first half (up to the https) and does not need to be doing so.

I'm still stumped.

I suspect it is the invalid characters (second colon, german or chinese characters) in the file path, not the filename. At least that seems to be my problem. I don't have a solution (other then renaming paths).

Well thanks for the input, but I know my files are simply named (file.pdf) and I created them so they should not have anything funny inside.

I think someone else here tried that already as well.

My Possible Solution:

My boss was having trouble opening 2 of a group of 5 or so adobe files with reader 8.x with this exact message. They had chinese characters in the file, as well as in the name.

I could open the files from my computer however, so i simply went to "save as copy" for each of them adding a number 2 at the end of file (ie, productline2.pdf).

Both appear to open up fine now from his computer.

Good luck
jody o

I'm still struggling, and the temporary work around is getting to be a bother. For the time being I am trying to use my backup computer when I am dealing with WebDav.

George, come up with the fix and send MS the invoice, I am sure they can afford it.

Howdy, Moritz!
Thanks for the suggestion, but this is not an issue of filename and language conflicts, at least in my environment. I highly doubt that's the root cause of this issue.

The PDF files in my tests have all had very simple names, such as 123.pdf and test.pdf, as well as more complicated names with spaces in them. Nothing about the files contains anything outside of the English language, including the content and filenames.

From everything I've been able to determine, this is a WebDAV-related security issue that affects programs like Acrobat Reader. I know for a fact that MS's KB892211 WebDAV patch doesn't create the issue, however MS's update to that 892211 patch DOES create the issue. As I've outlined earlier in this thread, my extensive testing has proven this more than once.

At this point, I haven't been able to accurately uninstall the update to 892211 after the update has been installed. And, as far as I can tell, the update to 892211 comes down from MS as a Office and/or Windows Update component. So, everyone has it, the uninstaller doesn't work, and there's no documentation detailing what registry entries are being changed when the update to 892211 is installed.

My ultimate goal is to bring a test machine to the point just before the update to 892211 goes on, fire up the Registry, Process, and File monitors on my test box, and install the 892211 update. This should give me an accurate picture of what I need to restore in order to rid the machine of the update to 892211.

Until Microsoft officially fixes the issue, I am not totally sure how this will be resolved. I've ceased my work on the issue for now since copying the PDF file from the WebDAV share to the user's desktop gets the user what they wanted in the first place - the ability to open the PDF file!

Maybe, once some other projects slow down a bit, I might get back to creating a solution, but it's going to be a "hack" no matter which way you slice it. I'd much rather MS spend their time creating the solution. If I have to do it, my fee to MS will be quite HIGH! :*)

George B.

I had the same problem this morning and I can tell you how I solved it or what I think is the problem:
Here we had a pdf document with a german "Ö", it means a special german letter and tried to open it on an english installation of XP with english Adobe Reader (chinese language pack). Then I received this Error Message. After renaming it and replaced the german 'ö' to a normal english 'oe' in the filename it worked out well!
So give it a try: Rename the document to whatever you like (test.pdf) and try it again!
Hope this will help!

It seems like there are more knowledgeable people here than myself. So (out of curiosity) would not it make sence to figure out where webdav, windows, or adobe is pulling the path of

"c:\documents and settings\xxxx\https:\yyyy.com\webdav..."

(where xxxx is the user name)

and edit out the first part?