If you encounter the following error when trying to use mail merge documents in an MIE Software application, it is usually because the application does not know where your Microsoft Word program is located.

This error usually occurs because the path statement in the autoexec.bat file on your computer does not contain a pointer to the directory (folder) containing the Microsoft Word program "winword.exe".

There are two ways to correct this problem. The first way involves modifying the PATH statement in the autoexec.bat file to point to the directory containing the Microsoft Word programme "winword.exe". This method does not always work on Windows 95 and Windows NT systems due to differences with the windows registry. the second method is to include the full path in your MIE Software application pointer to the Microsoft Word program "winword.exe".

Method 1    Alter the PATH statement

To correct the path take the following steps.

Press the Start button and then select Run. Enter winfile in the Open field as shown below and then click the OK button.

This will open the File Manager (do not use the Windows Explorer).

From the File menu in File Manager, select Search as shown below.

Fill out the Search screen with winword.exe in Search For, c:\ in Start From and the Search All Subdirectories check box marked as shown below and then click the OK button. (If the hard drive containing winword.exe is other than the c: drive enter the appropriate letter followed by :\).

The system will search your hard disk and return the location of the winword.exe program similar to that shown below.

Discard the final \winword.exe to give the characters you’ll need for the path statement. In this case the search result was:

so the characters we will need for the path statement are:

Once you have established the characters you need, close the File Manager.

Press the Start button and then select Run. Enter sysedit in the Open field as shown below and then click the OK button.

This will open the System Configuration Editor with the top window showing the autoexec.bat file.

If there is no line in your autoexec.bat file beginning with path= or PATH= add a new line at the beginning of the file as shown below.

Change from:

to (using our earlier example):

If there is already a line in your autoexec.bat file beginning path= or PATH= then add the extra characters to the existing path as shown below.

Change from:

to (using our previous example):

After you have changed the autoexec.bat file, close the System Configuration Editor (saving your changes) and then turn off and restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Method 2   Point directly to the word processor program

Press the Start button and then select Run. Enter winfile in the Open field as shown below and then click the OK button.

This will open the File Manager (do not use the Windows Explorer).

From the File menu in File Manager, select Search as shown below.

Fill out the Search screen with winword.exe in Search For, c:\ in Start From and the Search All Subdirectories check box marked as shown below and then click the OK button. (If the hard drive containing winword.exe is other than the c: drive enter the appropriate letter followed by :\).

The system will search your hard disk and return the location of the winword.exe program similar to that shown below.

In this case the search result was:

so this is exactly the information we need to add to the MIE Software application.

Open the Global Options or Personal Options screen in your MIE Software application (the appearance of the screen will vary slightly from application to application).

Enter the full path and program name exactly as they were displayed in the File Manager search. (To be able to see the full text, click in the Word Processor Executable Program Name field and then press Shift+F2; this will open the Zoom dialog box).

Click OK to update the field on the Global Options screen.

Click OK to close the Global Options screen and save your changes.

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