Problem with opening hyperlinks in Word 2007

[Lopaisate]

We have a couple users with the following set up who are currently having problems opening hyperlinks from Word 2007.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 OS
Office 2007
ESet Nod32 v.4.0.424.0 on one machine, v.3.0.684.0 on the other
IE7 set as default web browser

The problem they are seeing is that when they insert a link into a Word document and then when they go to click on it using Ctrl+Click a pop up window appears with a generic error message saying "An unexpected error has occurred" and then nothing else happens. They click ok and they are taken back to their Word document. If they copy and paste the link into the address bar in IE they are able to go to the link just fine.

We ran the fix as suggested in the Microsoft KB article 823301. It worked for a short time and then it went back to throwing up the generic error again. We've ensured that the browser is set to default to IE. No errors are showing up in the logs that would give us any clues as to what is going on.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

[Cudni]

did you try reapplying the same fix from MS and did it work? is the Office 2007 fully patched + apply SP3 for XP

[Lopaisate]

Sorry we have Office Service Pack 2 and Windows XP service Pack 3. Outlook is fully patched. We've run the fix at least twice on one of the computers to no avail. We've also tried running the specific commands in Run that are run in the 823301 fix.

We also adjusted the configuration settings to tell ESet to not scan Word.

Lastly, the users do not have admin privileges. This issue does not appear to be happening for users who have admin privileges.

[Cudni]

i doubt it is eset causing it (and the setting not to scan docs reverts on restart anyway), sounds rather like potential permissions issue

[Lopaisate]

Can you give me an idea as to what kind of permissions issue would be causing the problem? The odd thing is that opening links worked for a time after running the KB fix. But then it just went back to not working after a few weeks. Currently our users are set to be remote desktop users. The only users with admin privileges are system admins and we would prefer to keep it that way.

[ccomputertek]

No HIPS software like a firewall that would ask to let word access the internet from the link right ?

[Lopaisate]

No. No firewall settings that would prevent it from going out. It almost seems like something is getting reset since it will temporarily work and then just stop.

[ccomputertek]

policies on those workstations maybe ?

[Lopaisate]

No. We have a pretty open system here. No blocking of anything other than the typical adult websites and media downloading sites (e.g. torrent downloading, p2p sites). The file will open up and the hyperlinks will work fine on some work stations but not others. It's proving to be a very difficult problem to diagnose