File menu not opening in Word 2002

[ozegirl]

System is WinXP SP2
IE7, Word 2002 and elements of Office 2000 (Excel, Access, Powerpoint)

Gets all the windows & virus updates, etc.

This afternoon word was working Ok and then the next time it was used the
File menu won't open - I mean that you open a file and then the drop down
file menu at the top (new file, save, print) etc doesn't appear. The word
"File" is there but nothing happens - the other menu items Edit, View, etc
all work. File command icons such as the save icon and the new file icon work
(icon buttons)

I've tried detect & repair (twice with restart)
I only have one system restore point from the windows update that came late
this afternoon, and the problem preceds that I think.

I tried downloading outstanding office updates (security updates)

I'd rather not have to reinstall the program because there are loads of
updates for it, plus I'm nervous about it already being activated once on
this computer - I knwo I should be able to reinstall it but word is such a
vital program & if anything goes wrong with the reinstall I'd be stuck. Help
please!

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It may cheer you somewhat to know that reinstalling would probably not help
at all. I suggest you proceed as if the File menu were not there at all. Try
these fixes (in order):

1. Open Tools | Customize. On the Toolbars tab, select Menu Bar and press
Reset.

2. If that doesn't work, switch to the Commands tab and select Built-in
Menus in the Categories list. In the Commands list, select the File
menu and drag it to the menu bar (drag the nonfunctioning one off first).

3. If that doesn't work (or the problem recurs on restarting Word), see
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/MissingMenusEtc.htm

 

[ozegirl]

OK I seem to have fixed this for now, after reading another post with a
related problem. I deleted the Normal.dot template & allowed a new one to
regenerate. And now it works. But what causes this behaviour? I've noticed
that often when closing Word documents they hang or there are spurious error
messages, so would it be a case of some corrupt files or temporary files not
closing and deleting as they should, or what?

 

[ozegirl]

Thanks Suzanne,

I did actually already look in the Tools customize section. First I tried
unchecking the File Menu on the check list with the intention of then
rechecking it to see if that reset it, but found that the File menu couldn't
be unchecked. Then I saw the reset button and I clicked that but from memory
it said something along the lines of resetting Normal.dot to the new values
selected or something and I was wary of doing that in case I altered a "good"
normal.dot template with the "bad" settings. That's when I decided to check
here first in case there was a simple fix I had overlooked.

It would appear however that it was the Normal.dot template that was the
problem. I went into C:\Documents and Settings\(Username)\Application
Data\Micorsoft \Templates and there I found some hidden temporary files of
word documents that had not been closed properly, some autorecovery docs,
and apart from the Normal.Dot which was "normal" there was a "hidden"
temporary Normal.Dot file too. I got rid of all the "temp" files, and then I
moved the "normal" Normal.Dot to another folder (didn't want to delete it
yet, just in case) - then I restarted Word. It worked - I had read on another
post that the Normal.Dot template regenerates when deleted & Word restarted -
well I didn't get a new Normal.Dot regenerated in that folder, but it works
again! (There was however another file in that folder called Normalas.dot).

I also uninstalled Works for windows plug-ins which on another thread turned
out to be causing a problem with Word.

Thanks for your solutions, they might come in handy again, especially the
link to the Microsoft article is very useful.



ry the File Menu reset but

 

[ozegirl]

Sorry in the post above I said "File menu" twice where I meant "menu bar"