I want to quickly follow-up on yesterdays blog post and provide some additional information about this. After digging into this from both Corel's and Microsoft's sides, it appears that the knowledge base article requires further clarification and will be updated shortly. To summarize the conclusion so far, the problem is not with CorelDRAW or the CorelDRAW .CDR file format, but appears to be related to the import filters from MS Office. Computerworld, eWeek and other publications had good coverage about this today.
As mentioned yesterday, Corel is currently not aware of any security issue related to CorelDRAW or the CorelDRAW .CDR file format (or any other product / file format from Corel for that matter). If there was a known problem that had security implications, we would get this resolved as quickly as possible.
Update (Jan 5, 2008): David LeBlanc posted additional information on his blog.
Update 2 (Jan 6, 2008): Everything is clarified - Computerworld posted another article about it yesterday, followed by BetaNews.
I think I used their fix to enable the filter in any case. And I'm certainly having no problem here.
That remains are very badly described change. What versions were effected? The MS blog indicated that they had disabled all CDR OLE over the clipboard. Was this some other filter?
It was very poorly reported in the Internet media. Some articles on it created the illusion that it was WordPerfect files.
Even reading what you have written above I first read as...
CorelDRAW.OLE objects.
Sounds now like it was totally blown out of all proportion.
Yani, they actually only disabled their (very old) import filters... very few people actually use them anyway as they don't support current versions of CorelDRAW. OLE objects will still work fine with CorelDRAW.
One has to wonder if the problem actually related to Microsoft's entry into graphics with the Expression series and their subsequent behavior is nothing more than just another spin on how they eliminate or make competitors look bad.
Frankly to disable OLE from any application after the effort that is required to make it work in the first instance by developers is truly appalling. And to do this without warning Corel... really there is no excuse for such behavior.
How many users will be resourceful enough to seek out either the KB at Microsoft or the information here? Further when it was first reported in the press it was implied that the problem was with WordPerfect files, a logical connection.
As users I for one have been pretty insistent that Corel Draw be able to correctly manage Excel OLE in particular. And I expect no less from MS with OLE from Draw to Office applications. This technology was the invention of MS and only recently has hardware been of sufficient power to correctly manage it.
The disabling of it without notice is the act of a company seeking to harm a competitor and nothing less.