PROBLEMS OPENING MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENTS ...And Solutions

PROBLEMS OPENING MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENTS ...and solutions.

A support guide provided by SnappyFORMS.com

S n a p p y F o r m s www.SnappyFORMS.com Problems opening Word Word Documents ...and solutions

Contents:

> If Word opens very slowly > If Word crashes as soon as it opens

If Word opens very slowly...

If you get an error message as soon as Word opens, but it doesn’t crash (e.g. “Com- pile Error in Hidden Module”) ...

If you are using Office 2000 SR-1 or SR-1a, and all Office applications quit without an error message as soon as they open ...

If, whenever you start one of the Microsoft Office programs after applying the Microsoft Office SR-1/SR-1a Update, the program quits immediately after it starts, this probably means that the CD key that was originally supplied with your copy of Office was faulty. For more details and the fix, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article WOFF2000: Program Quits Immediately After Starting When SR-1/SR-1a Update Is Applied (Q255503)

Read further down the manual for more information on slow opening documents.

If Word crashes as soon as it opens

a) Check for template corruption b) Check for a corrupt registry key c) Check your printer driver d) Check for conflicts with Norton AntiVirus

a) Check for template corruption

It is most likely to be due to template corruption. To verify whether this is the case, start Word without templates and add-ins loaded, to see whether it still crashes: to do this, click the Start button in the bottom left of your screen, select Run, and type winword.exe /a. (You may need to specify the full path although you probably won’t.)

Note the space before the forward slash! If you miss out that space, you’ll get an error message such as: “Cannot find the file ‘winword.exe/a’ or one of its compo- nents”.

www.SnappyFORMS.com The /a switch is intended as a troubleshooting tool only, and you shouldn’t continue to use it to start Word. Any customisations you make while in this mode will be discarded.

1. If that fixes it, either your Normal.dot template or one of the files in Word’s Startup path are probably corrupt, so the next steps to try are:

i) Try renaming your Normal.dot file (with Word closed – and if Outlook is your email editor, close Outlook as well, and if you have opened a Word document within Internet Explorer, close IE too).

For instance, try renaming Normal.dot to Normal.old – and make sure you only have one Normal.dot file. If you cannot see the file extensions (as in Normal.dot) see the reference to switching their display on in ii) below.

ii) If that doesn’t fix it, try either

Moving any files that are in Word’s Startup2 path to another folder, or

Renaming any files in Word’s Startup2 path from [filename].dot to [filename].old.

If you cannot see the file extensions (as in [filename].dot), you can switch their display on in Windows Explorer. To do so, select View + Folder Options (or Tools + Folder Options, or View + Options, in some versions of Windows); and on the “View” tab of the dialog, deselect “Hide file extensions for known file types”.

If in doubt, move the files instead of renaming them.

b) If it isn’t a template corruption, it may be a corrupt registry key – try deleting the Data Key – read below for more details.

c) Another possibility is that you have a network printer driver that is not installed on your hard disk, but that is set up as your default printer.

www.SnappyFORMS.com b) Check for a corrupt registry key

Deleting and recreating the corrupt registry values.

To fix the problem, you need to close Word and delete one of the following Registry keys:

For Word 97: \\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Data for Word 2000:

\\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word\Data

for Word 2002:

\\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Data

A clean key will automatically be created when you restart Word.

Alternatively, rather than delete the “Data” key itself, you can delete either “Set- tings” or the “Toolbars” value within the Data key – if your menus and toolbars are corrupt but your other settings are OK, just delete the Toolbars value and you won’t lose your preferred settings.

Warning: If you do delete the “Settings” value (or the entire Data key), your settings will return to the factory defaults; so if you do still have access to your menus, see What exactly does the Data Key in the Registry store? for details of how you can (in effect) back up and restore many of your preference settings. Record the macro described there before you delete your keys or values, and play it back afterwards to restore them.

c) Check your printer driver

When Word opens, it needs to query your default printer driver (the one shown as “Default” under Start + Settings + Printers). For most people, even if the default printer is a network printer, this will not cause any problems, because the printer driver will usually be installed on your hard disk. But if you use a Microsoft network at work, you can use a printer driver that’s located on a server, and not installed on your hard disk. This makes it easy for IT to update everybody at once with new driver versions, or different driver configurations.

But if you are not connected to your network (for instance, because you have a laptop, or because your server has gone down) and if the driver is installed on the www.SnappyFORMS.com server and not on your hard disk, Word can’t query the driver; and unfortunately, rather than give a meaningful error message, it just crashes!

Note that this scenario can also cause problems for PowerPoint and Excel, but not when you first open them; only Word crashes on startup as a result of this.

You can tell whether your network printer drivers are installed locally or on the server by going to Start + Settings + Printers and right-clicking on the printer icon; if the driver is installed on the server, then the title bar of the printer’s Properties dialog will say: “[Printername] on [Servername] Properties”; whereas with a locally installed network printer driver, it shows just “[Printername] Properties”.

If your default printer is a network printer, and if the printer driver is installed on the server, the best solution is to reinstall your network printer’s driver on your hard disk. To do so, run the “Add Printer” wizard under Start + Settings + Printers, while you are connected to the network. After installing the new driver, delete the old icon. The problem should now be fixed.

If you do not currently have access to your network, temporarily make a local printer the default (right-click and select “Set as Default”). Or if you don’t have a driver installed for a local printer, work through the “Add Printer Wizard” (Start + Settings + Printers) and add a local printer driver as the default – note that a physical printer does not need to be present in order to do this.

If your IT department have set up your PC in such a way that you can’t install new printer drivers on your hard disk, the only fix is to make sure that your default printer is a local printer.

d) Check for conflicts with Norton Antivirus

If you are running Norton AntiVirus (NAV), or Norton SystemWorks, which incorpo- rates NAV, there may be a conflict between the so-called Norton AntiVirus plug-in for Microsoft Office and another third party add-in that you have installed. Typi- cally, you may get the error message: “Error VBE6.DLL”.

It is actually a very good idea to disable the NAV plug-in for Office in any case, as it confers no real benefit and it slows Word down. Click here for details of how to disable it.

There are two specific add-ins that are known to conflict with the NAV plug-in:

If you have Adobe Acrobat version 5.0, you should upgrade to version 5.0.5, whether or not you decide to continue to run the NAV plug-in for Office – the Acro- www.SnappyFORMS.com bat update fixes many other problems as well, and it’s free. Click here for details of how to upgrade.

If you have WinFax PRO v10.02, click here for details of the bug and the fix.

If you also use Excel you may find that the error occurs there as well. The only fix in this case is to disable the Norton AntiVirus Office Plug-in.

However, if you don’t want to disable the NAV plug-in (and if you don’t get any problems with Excel), the fix on the Symantec site is to install a replacement WinFax add-in, which is available for download on their web page. Unfortunately their instructions for installing the add-in are misleading, so use the following steps instead:

i) To find out where Word’s Startup folder is, look under Tools + Options + File Loca- tions in Word2.

ii) Close Word, and, on the Symantec site, right-click where it says “Winword2k. dot”; select “Save Target As”; and save the file in Word’s Startup folder (overwriting the existing file if it’s there).

iii) In Windows Explorer, press Ctrl+F, and search for Winword2k.dot. If you find you have more than one copy, delete the one that you didn’t just install. The reason for doing this is that there is a bug in the WinFax installer software – it doesn’t always install its add-in in the right folder.

But in any case, it really is a good idea to disable the NAV plug-in, and if you do so, you won’t get any of these conflicts.

If Word opens very slowly

This could be template or registry corruption – follow all the steps listed under at the beginning of this document “If Word crashes as soon as it opens”.

If they don’t fix it, verify that you aren’t logging Word information in the Outlook Journal; in Outlook, click Tools, Options, Journal, and check the state of the “Micro- soft Word” checkbox in the “Also record files from:” box.

You’ll find other possibilities and more information in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles: WD: Word Starts Slowly When Using a Network Printer Driver OFF97: Opening and Closing Programs or Files May Be Slow

www.SnappyFORMS.com Note for Mac users: If Word starts up excruciatingly slowly on a Mac, it may be because two copies of the application (same version) exist on the same hard disk. This sometimes happens when a user attempts to create an alias but mistakenly duplicates the file instead. The solution is to delete the duplicate file.

If you get an error message as soon as Word opens, but it doesn’t crash (e.g. “Com- pile Error in Hidden Module”) ...

... then there is a macro in one of your Global templates containing an error. It could be an innocent error or it could be a virus.

Software Developer NOTE: SnappyFORMS.com templates are developed without using macros nor other execut- ing code that could cause a virus program to alert you of a threat and are of no threat to the computer. Be sure to use only templates supplied by us. We do NOT use macros in our templates.

a) Either way, try either

Moving any files that are in Word’s Startup2 path to another folder. Or

Renaming any files in Word’s Startup2 path from [filename].dot to [filename].old.

If you cannot see the file extensions (as in [ filename].dot), you can switch their display on in Windows Explorer. To do so, select View + Folder Options (or Tools + Folder Options, or View + Options, in some versions of Windows); and on the “View” tab of the dialog, deselect “Hide file extensions for known file types”.

If in doubt, move the files instead of renaming them.

If the error disappears, move or rename them back, one by one, until you isolate which file contains the problem macro. If the macro is not familiar to you (or to your IT department if you are at work), then it is almost certainly a virus – in which case, get hold of the latest anti-virus software before using Word again.

b) If that doesn’t fix it, try renaming Normal.dot to Normal.old (with Word closed – and if Outlook is your email editor, close Outlook as well, and if you have opened a Word document within Internet Explorer, close IE too). If you cannot see the file extensions (as in Normal.dot) see the reference to switching their display on in b) below.

If that fixes it, there is an error in a macro in your Normal.dot file; and if you didn’t create the macro, that probably means a virus – in which case, get hold of the latest www.SnappyFORMS.com anti-virus software before using Word again.

c) If that doesn’t fix it, you may have a COM Add-in that contains an error. See: How to find out whether any Word Add-ins have been installed for more details.

1. Alternatively, in Word 2002, starting Word while holding down the Ctrl key, or using the /safe switch rather than the /a switch, opens Word in “Safe mode”, which is similar but sometimes even better for troubleshooting.. See Microsoft Knowledge Base article: WD2002: About Office Safe Mode in Word for more details

2. Templates stored in Word’s Startup path load automatically when Word opens; and are also known as Global templates.

In Word 97 (and previous versions) there is one Startup path (referred to from now on as the “real” Startup path).

Word 2000 and higher versions unfortunately, and confusingly, have two Startup paths: the “real” Startup path, plus a “factory preset” Startup path.

a) You can find out where the “real” Startup path is by selecting Tools + Options + File Locations in Word.

If you can’t see the full Startup path in the File Locations dialog, click the Modify button. Word 2000 and previous versions display the full path where it says “Folder Name”. In Word 2002 (unfortunately) you have to pull down the arrow where it says “Look in” in order to see the full path.

If you can’t get into Word, you can get the “real” Startup path by either:

Searching your hard disk for *.dot.

Looking in the registry for:

(Word 97): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options\ “STARTUP-PATH”

(Word 2000): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word\Options\ “STARTUP-PATH”

(Word 2002): HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Options\ “STARTUP-PATH” www.SnappyFORMS.com (You cannot reliably get the correct Startup path by running Winword.exe /a, incidentally; the path that lists was the “real” Startup path when you first installed Word (unless you upgraded from a previous version), but if you (or anyone) subse- quently changed that setting, the new path is not shown in the Tools + Options + File Locations dialog if you start Word using the /a switch.)

b) you can find out where the “factory preset” Startup path is by looking in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\ directory (or equivalent, if you installed Word somewhere else) for a folder named Startup.

Note that you should not install add-ins in the “factory preset” Startup path; it is far better to put all your add-ins in the folder shown under Tools + Options + File Locations. Unfortunately some program installers install add-ins in the “factory preset” one; and if that ever happens to you, it’s a good idea to immediately cut and paste the add-in (using Windows Explorer) and put it into the folder shown under Tools + Options + File Locations. Otherwise life can get very confusing.

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