Have you ever seen this message before? Chances are, probably not but in my organization this might rear it’s ugly head from one time or another.
I received a call from one of my user’s and they said that they could not edit an Excel file from withing SharePoint. Since we have a mixed MS Office environment, I first verified what version of office was installed (2010). After that, I checked to see how my system performed (no issues). Then, I go through the process that most admins go through when troubleshooting; “Why is this working for me”, “What could it be”, “Maybe it’s just the user”, etc. Once that wears off, I sit back and think for a minute. Turns out, not a big issue at all, just a step left out in an upgrade process.
What happened was the user had Office 2003 installed on their computer and installed the compatibility pack to open newer versions. Eventually, the user upgraded to Office 2010. When this happened, the office compatibility pack was not installed, resulting in the error ‘The converter failed to save….’ blah blah blah.
The solution? Well, you guessed it…. Uninstall the compatibility pack. Simple. Done.
Eric – I was troubleshooting this question all morning for a network user, following different threads on different sites. Couldn’t find the answer until I found this.
This was the exact cause of the problem. Thanks for documenting for all to see.
Al