Cannot close Word 2007

[Nigel]

I cannot close Word 2007 by clicking X. The X, _ and  do not highlight
when running the mouse over them, and if I click X it prevents me from
closing the program any other way than by right-clicking the open Word
session in the taskbar and choosing Close.

The only way it will close every time without fail is to choose 'Exit Word'.

I don't have any add-ins installed and all Windows Updates and drivers for
printers,etc are up-to-date. None of the other Office 2007 programs are
affected by this problem - OneNote, Excel and Powerpoint all close by
clicking on X.

Running Office Diagnostics doesn't show any problems.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Nigel

Do the keyboard commands for this work: Ctrl+F4 should close the active
document and Alt+F4 should close Word and the document? My guess is that as
everything else is OK it has to be a driver issue: namely printer, graphics
or mouse drivers. But try the keyboard commands first. If the keyboard
works, try starting Word in Safe Mode: use Winkey+R, type in...

winword /a

and press enter. This should open Word in Safe Mode. Does the mouse work
correctly now?

 

[Nigel]

Hi Terry

Ctril+F4 and Alt+F4 do work correctly, but the mouse-based close still fails
even with Word in Safe Mode - it 'highlights' the X in black.

Clicking on X to close has worked on about 1% of previous occasions, but I
cannot establish why - rebooting the machine or disabling the firewall and
antivirus software haven't made any difference.

As mentioned previously, it's only Word 2007 that's affected - all other
part of the Office 2007 suite are ok.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Word is very hard on printer and graphics drivers - which is why it often
spots problems with a driver before anything else finds it.

Starting in Safe Mode eliminates any third party add-ins, macros,
customisations or normal.dot. So it still points to a driver issue - though
it may be a corrupt Word installation but this is most unlikely. However, to
eliminate Word corruption, open Word, Go to Options (ALt+Alt,I) and click on
the Resources tab and then run Office Diagnostics.

If the problem persists, try the following in this order.

Open up Display Settings and reduce the hardware acceleration 2 or 3
notches: test.
Check at the Internet support site to see if there are newer drivers for the
printer and mouse. Delete the printer and reinstall with new driver and
test.
Install the new mouse driver and test.
Finally, check for the latest version of the graphics driver (if it is Intel
integrated graphics, get the driver direct from Intel and not from the
hardware vendor), then install the graphics driver and test.

Terry

 

[Nigel]

Office Diagnostics - passed
Reduced hardware acceleratiion 3 notches - no change
Uninstalled printer driver and reinstalled with latest from manufacturer's
wesbite - no change
Microsoft Intellimouse - no new driver available
Graphics driver - nvidia 94.24 latest version for GE Force 6600GT

Also tried the repair option via Add/Remove programs in Control Panel, but
no improvement.

The 'inner X', i.e. the one that closes the document rather than Word
itself, functions perfectly; only the X that closes Word is failing.

Nigel

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Do the other caption buttons -- minimize/maximize/restore, just to the left
of X -- work correctly?

Trying to understand... are you saying that when you click the X, nothing
happens? Or are you saying that when you click the X, Word instead kind-of
locks up, requiring shut down from the task manager?

Using the /a switch isn't exactly the same as safe mode. Safe mode turns off
additional things. Try pressing Ctrl as Word is starting, then click Yes to
the Safe Mode prompt. Does the X button now work correctly?

One more thing to try... if you create a new Windows user login, and start
Word from it, does the X button work correctly now?

 

[Nigel]

Hi Herb

No, the minimise/maximise/restore caption buttons don't work either -
clicking on any of them shows the button as permanently 'depressed', but I
can't exit the Word from the Exit Word menu option, it has to be by
right-clicking the open Word window in the Windows taskbar and choosing
Close, or via Task Manager.

The problem still occurs in Safe Mode using the Ctrl key method you described.

However, I created a Guest User account and Word works perfectly in that
account, but not my normal (Administrator) account - so where to from here ?

Nigel

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

It would appear that SOMETHING in your user account is corrupted. Here's
what I did the first time something similar happened to me:

1. Spent days checking different folders to see if substituting subfolders
from the "working" profile would fix the "broken" profile.

2. After many hours, discovered that I could corrupt a working profile by
copying certain folders over, but I could not fix a broken profile.

3. Eventually gave up, created a new administrator profile, gradually
configured it it for my needs, copied over all my data files... etc.

It's possible that you could find a solution for the problem by substituting
folders and/or copying parts of the registry. I didn't, and in hindsight, I
wasted a LOT of time. So, the next time it happened, I just bit the bullet,
created a new profile, copied my files (but not my settings), etc. Then I
deleted the old profile so it wouldn't take up space -- conceptually or
actually.

So... you can learn from my many wasted hours... or just bite the bullet and
adopt the new profile.

Good luck!

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Nigel]

Thanks Herb. I've had a look at creating a new administrator profile from
some web articles and it seems to be fraught with dangers if backups aren't
done,etc. - I might sleep on that one.

One other thing I tried, was to start Windows in Safe Mode, and Word
performed flawlessly even when using the same user account that it fails with
when booted normally - not sure how significant that is.

Nigel

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Hi, Nigel,

The following article describes the sorts of things that safe mode does in
Office 2007:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP101407921033.aspx

I suggest that you work your way though and eliminate different bits to see
if something causes Word to stop acting up.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Nigel]

Hi Herb

Thanks for the link.

If I have Word itself running in Safe Mode, then the problem is still
present, but if I have Windows in Safe Mode with Word running normally, then
the problem disappears.

Looking at the inactive Add-in differences between the two different Safe
Modes reveals that

Word in Safe Mode i.e. Ctrl-F at Startup, inactive application Add-ins are

Custom XML Data
Headers, Footers and Watermarks
Hidden Text

Windows in Safe Mode (pressing F8 at bootup), inactive applications are as
above, plus

Financial Symbol (Smart tag lists)
Measurement Converter (Measurement Converter)
Time (Smart tag lists)

In addition, when Windows is in Safe Mode, the following application Add-in
is active - it's inactive when Word is in Safe Mode

Person Name (Outlook e-mail recipients)

That one also prompted me to remember that when trying to send a document
via email from within Word, the program crashes, recovers data and restarts
after sending an error repport to Microsoft - I'm using Outlook Express 6 as
my mail client as Outlook 2007 isn't included in the Office Home & Student
Edition.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Ah. I misread. I thought you'd said that Office's safe mode had provided
relife. Instead, it's Windows' safe mode. This suggests to me that a new
user profile would "fix" the problem.

At the very least, create a new test profile to see if it fixes the problem.
FWIW, I've had to replace my main Herb/Administrator profile a number of
times. While it's not fun and involves a fair amount of work replicating
settings, copying data, etc., it's never been a really big deal... but, I
can appreciate the reluctance if you have a number of profile-based backups.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com