Retrieving the COM class factory for component error while generating word document

calendar_today Asked Jul 27, 2009
thumb_up 7 upvotes
history Updated April 16, 2026

Question posted 2009 · +8 upvotes

I am trying to edit a word document from VB.NET using for the most part this code:

How to automate Word from Visual Basic .NET to create a new document http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316383

It works fine on my machine but when i publish to the server i get the following error.

Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {000209FF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to the following error: 80070005.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {000209FF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to the following error: 80070005.

The actual error happens when i try to just create a word application object

 Dim oWord As New Word.Application

Using Visual Studio 2008 and VB.NET 3.5. I made a reference to the “Microsoft Word 10.0 Object Library” and i see Interop.Word.dll file in the bin directory.

Using MS Office 2003 on development machine and Windows Server 2003

Still fairly new to .NET and don’t have much knowledge about window server, but “UnauthorizedAccessException” sounds like a permission issue. I’m wondering if someone could point me in the right direction on what i might need to do to give my little application access to use word.

Accepted answer +7 upvotes

It definitely sounds like a permissions problem. Are you running your code in a windows service? The service normally runs as Local System, which may not have permission to access the Word object model. Additionally, if word is already running using the credentials of some other user then your program may not be able to access it via COM using different credentials. The office applications tend to be single instance which seems to exacerbate this problem.

Word VBA objects referenced (4)

  • Application — Using events with the Application object
  • Application — Working with Other Applications
  • Interop.Word — Exporting a Range to a Table in a Word Document
  • Interop.Word — Using events with the Application object (Word)

Top ms-word Q&A (6)

+7 upvotes ranks this answer #16 out of 31 ms-word solutions on this site .
ms-word