Office '03 crashes in XP continued

[Guest]

I have been having an intermittent problem with Office
2003 and blaming the printer driver.
-Whenever I open Outlook, I get an error message saying
Office crashed and then it "recovers" a blank Word
document.
-Office programs crash with no discernible pattern.
-Whenever I send an "error report," I get an "automated
crash analysis"(which is about as useful as anything from
Redmond, which is to say, not at all) blaming the driver
for an HP d135 printer.

-First I tried here, and was told to try updating the
printer driver.
-I tried to pull out and reinstall the printer driver.
Although Windows can find it to blame it for the Office
crash (which is manifestly a Microsoft problem..
incompatibility with anyone else's software is a common
MicroSoft "feature"), the driver does not show up in
control panel.
-Fortunately, HP (Unlike MicroSoft) has the occasional
competent programmer and their install program
automatically (and, unlike Windows, successfully) removed
the old driver, so I have, in spite of Windows,
successfully updated the driver.

-This did not solve the problem. It's not the printer
driver.
It's either a typical random-crash-generating
MicroSoft "feature" or a typical incompatibility-with-
anything-not-from-Redmond "feature."

 

[Test Man]

You should remove the printer from your machine, then remove the HP Printer
Driver by going to Start, Printer & Faxes, then selecting your printer and
pressing the Del button (or selecting the Delete This Printer task on the
left of the Window). Now try opening Outlook and see if it does the same
thing. If it doesn't happen again, then try reinstalling the HP driver. If
it happens again, then it IS the HP driver and you will have to badger HP to
come up with a decent driver that doesn't crash Outlook.

 

[Guest]

I appreciate your getting back to me but I don't know if
I can implement this. It took me a week to get that
printer on my machine (it's a network printer) and I've
already updated the printer driver, including removal of
the old printer driver.

Is there anything else I can try before dismantling my
network?

This looks a lot like one of a broad set of problems
stemming from Office's notorious incompatibility with
anything else. Is Microsoft going to address this? I've
already tried HP's new driver(which Microsoft ostensibly
approved as "XP ready") and all HP software is already up
to date.

BTW
-It doesn't crash Outlook, it opens and crashes Word
every time I open Outlook. Word being accessed by
Outlook is a definite Microsoft "feature."
-It also crashes Excel sometimes.
-Apart from the Outlook thing, I have discerned no other
pattern in the crashes.

-----Original Message-----
You should remove the printer from your machine, then remove the HP Printer
Driver by going to Start, Printer & Faxes, then selecting your printer and
pressing the Del button (or selecting the Delete This Printer task on the
left of the Window). Now try opening Outlook and see if it does the same
thing. If it doesn't happen again, then try

reinstalling the HP driver. If

 

[Beth Melton]

Install any printer and set it as the default.

More than likely you are encountering an issue where the printer
driver is stored on the network and the network is not available. Word
and Outlook, if use Word as your email editor, query the printer
driver upon opening to determine font list and printable area. If the
driver is not available then it can cause the errors you describe.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Guest]

I installed the driver on this machine BUT it is not
showing up in Control Panel.
Could these two things be related and, if so, how do I
address it?

 

[Beth Melton]

How did you install the driver? Did you use the Add Printer Wizard to
add it?

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Guest]

I used HP's update software to redo it, although I
initially used the Add Printer Wizard to install it. I
cannot find the driver in the add/remove programs dialog.
Is there a way I can successfully remove the driver
without doing this?

 

[Liz Hopkins]

P.S. Thanks very much.

-----Original Message-----
How did you install the driver? Did you use the Add Printer Wizard to
add it?

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/





.

 

[Beth Melton]

The printer driver will not display in Add/Remove Programs. If there
is additional software for the printer then it may display in
Add/Remove Programs.

Since you are encountering difficulty, you can determine if the
printer driver is installed locally by opening the print queue. If the
title bar reads [Printername] on [Servername] then you are using a
network printer driver.

Something else to try is to install any printer, such as an HP5 (you
don't need the physical printer to install a driver) using the Add
Printer Wizard and see if you continue to encounter the error.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Bungalow Bill]

OK, I am sick and tired of messing around with this. Here is my setup. Toshiba notebook on a wireless LAN using Linksys router technology, going to a Compaq Desktop that is connected directly to a HP 7130 Office jet. You would think that this is a pretty good setup and that I should have no problems running XP on the notebook with Office 2003 and on the desktop running Windows 98. The problem is not Windows 98 - trust me

Whenever I took my computer on the road and the home network was unavailable - using any MS product (wordpad, excel, word, powerpoint and so on) produced so many errors it was insane to try and get any work done. Of course, as a lamb being led to the slaughter, I called Microsoft about the issue. They of course said it was everyone elses fault! So off I went to be slaughtered with frustration, poor product support, and no fixes! Days and weeks went by and still I was bleeding badly.

I actually thought it was me (you know those voices that say it might be YOUR computer setup) and pulled out the yellow pages and came close to seeking psychiatric help as I began to think I was making this all up

I went through all the hoops, reinstalls of drivers, Office 2003, even system reinstalls and the slaughter now with the madman laughter continued (inside my head).

It turns out the above posts are correct in how Office 2003 works. It querys the printer or printer driver for information. If the printer is off, or offline, or unavailable YOU WILL HAVE ERRORS in the MS programs - but I have found it is only these programs you will have problems

So I did the local install driver install and pointed it to my printer through the shared path (not through an local LPT port) and thought the slaughter was over, but no, it continued as I went to Borders to enjoy a nice productive day - the errors came back! Remember Office 2003 does not like it when the printer is offline or unavailable

My solution so far until I find a "better" way is to install TWO drivers - yes TWO drivers. When the wireless network is available I make the default the networked printer icon - it does not make a difference if this is locally installed. However, if I am on the road and unable to access the networks or shared printer and it is unavailable or "offline", before I start ANY MS Office program I will go into the printers folder and switch the default to the "local" printer which looks like it is attached to LPT1 - even though there wikll never be a printer attached to this port for my configuration. So, when I am on the orad, MS Office sees the driver installed locally and does not need to go any further in determining if the printer is offline or not. This has seemed to work for me

Dont know about you. But you might want to give it a try. So the moral to this story is I have two drivers installed - one points to a network printer and the other points to a local port (LPT1). If I am on the road after bootup I will swtich the default printer to the local printer - when I am at home I will switch to the network printer.

I have pretty muched tried everything...any more solutions will be helpful like how to eliminate this extra step of switching default printers to get this ridiculous program to work when the printer is offline or unavailable would be helpful. Just be aware I have tried lots and lots of ways and heard lots and lots of "solutions"