Word Acts Up

[smo]

REcently when I opened Word

there came up the microsoft window saying

"Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." which then asked me if I wanted to send in an error report to Microsoft.

Next Word asked me if I wanted to open Word in Safe Mode. Clicking Yes will open up Word, in Safe Mode which greyed out the majority of features.

Since then I have done a number of things:

- uninstall everything in Microsoft Office then reinstall everything back. Only Word would act up again, everything else such as Excel works fine.

- reinstall Windows (XP) and then repeat the previous step. No avail.

In between uninstall and reinstall I tried to clean the system registry (using Ace utilities and the likes).

I don't know what else to do. And why only Word is acting up? Is my system infected with a Word-like virus?

Thank you in advance for your input/advice.

smo

[Petch01]

Next Word asked me if I wanted to open Word in Safe Mode. Clicking Yes will open up Word, in Safe Mode which greyed out the majority of features.

Very strange problem. I don't have direct solutions for you so just some more questions. Especially because of the SAFE MODE.

Did you recently install new display drivers or printer drivers or add-ons, plugins related to Word. In my case for example, Word has add-ons such as Adobe PDF maker and is related to my scan program and in the past a tablet writing program too. These programms can interfere wich a correct start up.

What about your language settings?

Again, just asking some more questions to eliminate sources of possibilities.

Give some info back.

Petch01

[pianoman]

A bit off topic but still Word related.... A friend just fired up his newly purchased computer and found that the dealship had installed Word for him at no cost... Problem being that it is in Thai, and neither he nor I can figure how to change it to English...

Any help / suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

Pianoman

[cdnvic]

Try checking your registry for errors and defragging it. http://www.tune-up.com/ (30 day trial).

cv

[Tywais]

I don't know what else to do. And why only Word is acting up? Is my system infected with a Word-like virus?

There are Word macro viruses but they are not as pervasive as they used to be. Try uninstalling it, start up Windows (not Word) in safe mode (hit F8 at boot time), run a virus scanner (with latest updates) and a malware scanner (adware, spybot, etc). Also, as lopburi said, a registry cleaner. Then reboot in normal mode and re-install and try again.

Nearly forgot, one last thing before re-installing office is search your computer for a file "normal.dot" and delete any found. This is the Word startup template and is a source of infection.

Edited February 3, 2006 by tywais

[peter991]

SMO: You say you are running Windows XP ... what version of MS Office are you running - MS Office 2003 or MS Office XP ???

I had similar problems with Office 2003 but haven't had any problems with Office XP.

Add edit: I found after I installed Office XP that I still had Office 2003 on my computer. Check to see which version(s) of Office you have installed. If you have 2 versions, delete the older version.

Peter

Edited February 3, 2006 by peter991

[Rimmer]

You could also run scandisc to see if you got any cross linked files.

Or perhaps you got the Nyxem virus

see todays BBC page at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4673576.stm

[francois]

hi'

I encounter this problem last month with a customer ...

MACROS!!!

when you install word(guessing it's the 2k3 version), you should not have any macro in ... until you use it and set yourself the normal dot using your own preferences, so I deleted three macros, and check in the app settings for trace of them, cleaned them and after reboot, all office was alright

just do same in safe mode as an admin

francois

[spog]

Install a new printer driver. Pick a nice simple driver (like the HP laserjet driver). Set it as the default printer

try and run word and see what happens

[cnnaing]

SMO: You say you are running Windows XP ... what version of MS Office are you running - MS Office 2003 or MS Office XP ???

I had similar problems with Office 2003 but haven't had any problems with Office XP.

Add edit: I found after I installed Office XP that I still had Office 2003 on my computer. Check to see which version(s) of Office you have installed. If you have 2 versions, delete the older version.

Peter

yes, Peter. it's right. but sometimes, we should do backwards. first, we install office xp and then office 2003. everything will be ok.

[Gary A]

I fixed mine! I downloaded all 76 megabytes of Open Office. It works great and does all and more than I need.

[francois]

SMO: You say you are running Windows XP ... what version of MS Office are you running - MS Office 2003 or MS Office XP ???

I had similar problems with Office 2003 but haven't had any problems with Office XP.

Add edit: I found after I installed Office XP that I still had Office 2003 on my computer. Check to see which version(s) of Office you have installed. If you have 2 versions, delete the older version.

Peter

yes, Peter. it's right. but sometimes, we should do backwards. first, we install office xp and then office 2003. everything will be ok.

hi'

what???

try to post something less .."newbie" in computer who thinks he got it all!

what a stupid idea!

you have the 2k3 version, install it./

you have a bad copy ... you get what you pay for

try OOo 2 and complain will stop, or do as I said

francois

[Wallalai]

As Gary A and francois said, Open Office is the best choice.

It can be installed on any Windows version, it's free (LGPL), multiplatform and works like a charm. It's not the case of Microsoft softwares.

What a pain ine the a.. to have to get another version of Word for every version of Windows.

[smo]

Next Word asked me if I wanted to open Word in Safe Mode. Clicking Yes will open up Word, in Safe Mode which greyed out the majority of features.

Very strange problem. I don't have direct solutions for you so just some more questions. Especially because of the SAFE MODE.

Did you recently install new display drivers or printer drivers or add-ons, plugins related to Word. In my case for example, Word has add-ons such as Adobe PDF maker and is related to my scan program and in the past a tablet writing program too. These programms can interfere wich a correct start up.

What about your language settings?

Again, just asking some more questions to eliminate sources of possibilities.

Give some info back.

Petch01

Thank you guys, for all the help.

To answer a number of questions:

- I use Windows XP Pro

- I tried both Office XP and Office 2003. Maybe the problem lies here, whatever version that I tried to uninstall, did not get uninstalled completely. And then I re-installed on top of it.

- language: English

- I don't quite remember when the problem started.... Haven't installed any new driver lately... Still racking my brains to recall what I did when that happened.

For the moment I am "scolded" into downloading Open Office and give it a try, since it seems the most painless solution and my need in Word is quite average.

Will report again.

smo

[smo]

I've downloaded Open Office version 2 and started to use its "Writer." So far so good.

Will save the more stringent measures suggested by several for a later date, when I have more free time and can afford to have a go at the problem at length.

Right now Open Office Writer will do.

Thanks

[Simmo]

This use to happen to one of the computers at work a lot ..

The cause was corrupted template files.

The fix was delete all normal.dot files on your computer and restart Word to recreate it.

[smo]

This use to happen to one of the computers at work a lot ..

The cause was corrupted template files.

The fix was delete all normal.dot files on your computer and restart Word to recreate it.

Search of "normal.dot" did not find anything. Are they hidden somewhere?

Thanks