My Word 2003 Is Hosed...

[ReneeFoxx]

Does anybody know how to completely remove Microsoft Word 2003 from Office
2003 Professional? It's wigging out all over the place, and blowing up
everytime I close a document or try to use it as my Outlook 2003 editor. I
tried to uninstall it with a tool from the Office website, but it didn't
really uninstall Word. I can't really uninstall all of Office, because I'd
probably lose data files that I'm probably not aware of; especially Outlook.
I'm desperate for an alternative answer other than uninstalling all Office
Pro products.

 

[ReneeFoxx]

Oh, I forgot to say that I tried Detect and Repair ... to no avail, and
whatever error underlies the problem is NOT visible as usual <rolling eyes>.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Read these -- they overlap somewhat.

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProblemsStartingWord.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541
http://www.theofficeexperts.com/word.htm#TroubleshootingWord

The key thing is that when Word "wigs out", it's usually in one of three places:
a badly written add-in, a damaged Normal.dot template, or a damaged registry
entry. Uninstalling and reinstalling does *not* fix any of these problems! The
articles explain how to isolate and remove or replace the damaged item.

Of course, now that you've tried to uninstall Word, only Odin knows what state
it's really in; you probably did more damage.

One word of comfort: Uninstalling part or all of Office does not "lose" data
files. Still, it would be a good idea -- make that a stellar idea -- to back up
your data before doing anything else. And keep the backups up-to-date!

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

 

[ReneeFoxx]

Those are EXACTLY the kind of links I was looking for. I knew it must be a
registry or plug-in thingy. I know it isn't a bad form or something, and I
can test normal.dot by taking it away temporarily. Thank you, thank you so
much!

 

[Terry Farrell]

This could also be down to an HP printer driver, if that is what you are
using.

 

[ReneeFoxx]

Good guess, Terry! But my printer drivers weren't the problem. Jay, I ran
the Guided Help program, and it resolved the problem right away. So, I guess
it was my normal.dot that was causing the problem, because when I restored a
saved version of the file back into Word, not everything I had in there was
present. Not sure how to resolve that, but at least Word isn't abending when
I close documents, and Outlook recognizes it as a valid editor again. Thank
you again, Jay!!!!

 

[Terry Farrell]

When you use Word as the email editor for Outlook, it does not use
normal.dot. So something else was amiss even if it wasn't the HP printer
driver.

Terry