wine users - Dec 2001 - word 2k file IO errors

I checked at 
http://wine.codeweavers.com/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?&order=bugs.creation_ts%2C%20bugs.bug_status
and BUG 343 opened on 10/09/2001 seems to still be open.

I looked at the mailing list Archives at
http://www.winehq.com/hypermail/wine-users/2001/10/index.html

specifically

http://www.winehq.com/hypermail/wine-users/2001/10/0233.html

I found

"last time I checked (but it wasn't office 2k)
it was something linked to commctrl (not commdlg)
running with -dll comctl32,commctrl=n worked around it"

I researched all of the archives back to February of this year and found 
no other solutions that applied.

I still have the same problem though.  I can't save or open any 
documents.  I get the error "This is not a valid file name."

I have Excel 97 which does work though.  I can open and edit files there 
so I don't think the problem is with my mounted win98 partition.

I have mounted my win98 partition with vfat fs and umask=0002 and quiet 
but no go.  Any ideas for a work around?

Thanks for any help.