Possible cause of periodic IE crash in SharePoint

by Rebecca Watson

If different version of Office products are installed, IE may crash intermittently when viewing SharePoint, for example, when trying to open an office document or clicking "edit in datasheet".

This may be due to conflicting DLLs--one for Office version 11 and one for Office version 12. Usually due to a blended Office install, ie, SharePoint Designer 2007 or Visio 2007 may be installed, but every other Office product is still 2003.

Look for owssupp.dll. You'll likely find it in 2 places, c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\owssupp.dll and c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\owssupp.dll. These guys are butting heads and the likely cause of the crashes.

Rename the Office 12 version to .old, leaving the Office 11 as is.

(c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\owssupp.old)