[Please do not top-post; top-posting corrected]
* "Herb Tyson":
While holding down the Ctrl key, start Word. Say "Yes" to starting Word in
Safe mode. Check Tools - Options - File Locations. Note the location for
AutoRecover Files. Close Word.
Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the Recover Files location, and look for
files matching "AutoRecovery save of *.asd". Delete or move them elsewhere.
You should now be able to start Word normally. If not, then take a look
here:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm
Thank you very much.
I fixed the problem by rebooting the machine, although there was no
winword.exe process (e.g. ROT) or other obvious "resident" trouble.
But after all the hassles with Word over the years (it is in one sense
wondrous how a program can manage to corrupt its own files in all versions,
except Word 1.1b I think it was which worked splendidly), and having tried
OpenOffice and much else, and not being especially fond of EMacs and LaTeX,
I'm considering writing my own word processor. If I do it won't have all the
bells and whistles of Word, of course, and it will not be as easy to exhange
documents with all those Word-users. But it will work, not crash or hang.
PS: Current problem: the Document Map is displayed in infinitely small
unreadable font, and setting font size 72 (which is now minimum for readable
display, regardless of width of pane) causes it to truncate lines early.
Previous problem was with master documents. They not only did not work at
all, but also corrupted all referenced read-only files... Jeez. I'm thinking
_seriously_ about the solution mentioned above.