Office 2001 Problem

[Richard]

I am running Office 2001 with MAC OS9. If I launch Word,
I get as far as the Project Gallery. If I attempt to open
a blank document, Word quits. If I attempt to open an
existing document, I can browse for the document, but when
I attempt to open it, Word quits. Sometimes, the Finder
then crashes too! I have been operating Word with
Preferred Memory set to 48000K (thanks to insights in
prior posts here). I have rebuilt the desktop and the
Entourage database. All other Office 2001 modules
including Entourage operate fine. If I substitute
the "Main Identity" with a new and unused one, Word does
NOT crash. So, how can I keep my old data and keep Word
running. Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

I was going to send you the standard 2001 troubleshooting remedies, but none
of those involve anything in the Main Identity folder, so that's rather a
mystery.

Okay, here's one thing to try, totally untested, so back up your entire Main
Identity folder first. Then quit all office programs, drag the Entourage
Preferences file from the Main Identity folder to the desktop, and restart
Entourage, then see if the problem persists.

If it works like all other prefs files, that file is prone to corruption but
a fresh one will be recreated on restarting the program (but I've never
tried this with a prefs file not in the prefs folder). If that solves it,
you'll have to reset some stuff, and we would appreciate knowing what you
need to reset. If it doesn't solve it, just delete the created file and
drag back the old one.

Standard remedies below, you might want to try any of those that you haven't
already tried before experimenting with the totally untested technique
above. In the meantime, I'll alert someone who's much better at 2001
troubleshooting to this thread.

DM


Here's some troubleshooting advice for Word 2001.

***Check Add-ins.
Look in Word's Startup Folder (Apps: Office: Office: Startup) for any global
templates or third-party add-in that can cause problems. Quit, remove them,
launch, see if problem persists.

***To check for corrupt Prefs:

1. Quit Word.
2. Navigate to your Word Settings (9) file: You¹ll find it in
System Folderreferences:Microsoft.
3. Rename the Word Settings (9) file and reopen Word. A new Word Settings
(9) file will be created.
4. If all is well, trash the old file. Since the Settings file stores all
your Word preferences, you will need to reset these.
5. If the fix did not work, quit Word, delete the new Settings file that
was created and rename the old file back.

***To check for corrupt Normal.dot:

1. Quit Word.
2. Navigate to your Normal template: By default, this is in
Applications:Microsoft Office 2001:Templates. If you do not find it there,
use Editreferences:File locations:User Templates:Modify to reveal its
location.
3. Rename the Normal template (for example, to oldNormal) and reopen
Word. A new Normal template will be created.
4. Open Word and test it.
5. If all is now well, quit Word.
6. Say Yes if prompted to save the changes to your Normal template (so
you don¹t discard the new one you just made).
7. Copy over any important customizations, styles, macros or auto-texts
from the old Normal to the new using Organizer (under Tools). You will lose
your keyboard shortcuts, sadly, as they cannot be copied like this.
8. Trash the oldNormal template file.
9. If this did not cure your problem, quit Word, delete the new Normal
template, then rename the old Normal back.

More info re Normal--it says X but mostly also applies to 2001.
<http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/MacWordNormalTemplate.htm>

***Test PPC Registration Database
This is in your Preferences folder, and holds Prefs that are office-wide,
like "don't show Project Gallery ever". Quit all Office applications, move
file somewhere or rename it, restart a program, see if problem is gone. If
not, you can just trash the new PPC Registration Database and move the old
one back, rather than reset office prefs.

*** Memory
Quit Word, and find the actual application icon in Apps: Office. Get Info
on the Word Icon, switch the drop-down menu to Memory. Leave Minimum alone,
but increase Preferred memory, ideally to about 48MB if you have enough
memory on your computer to allow that.

Turn Virtual Memory on, although only to 1MB plus physical memory. Word runs
better with it on.

***Rebuild your desktop
You should rebuild the desktop every week or month or so anyhow. MacHelp
will tell you how.

***Update
Get Info on the Word icon should say Version 9.0.4, as the combined updater
for Office 2001 released in late 2003 made a few small changes. You can get
it here:
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx#Office2001>

****To check for an Extensions Conflict.
Mostly likely to apply with consistent and reproducible problems.
Boot with all extensions off by holding down the shift key as the computer
restarts. If the problem is gone, you had an extensions conflict.

Some more info on that:
see Resolving a System Extension Conflict in Mac Help
And/or
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com
:80/support/kb/articles/Q263/1/59.ASP&NoWebContent=1>
(URL may be broken by textwrap)

***Menu Problems
<http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/Word2001Menus.htm>

Hope something helps--post back yes or no.

DM

 

[Richard]

Thank you for your "Main Identity" Test Remedy and the
other Word 2001 Advices. Unfortunately, these did not
remedy our problem. I did find something interesting when
I did the check for the corrupt "Normal Template" The
program crashes before the new "Normal Template" is
created. That is, you do not see a new "Normal Template"
after removing the previous one and restarting the
program. I do not know if this tells anyone more about
the problem I am having here. Any additional thoughts?

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Richard (or is it Joe?),

Aren't you the same person who posted about this situation over on the
MacWord newsgroup? Since the posts were word for word identical till the
very end, I would think so.

A point of netiquette: If you feel you really need to post to more than one
newsgroup, please cross-post. By that I mean, add the second newsgroup to
the TO pane of the same message; *and* put a note right at the top of the
message body that says something like, "Cross-posted to the MacOffice and
MacWord newsgroups." That way, those of us who answer these posts regularly
don't waste time duplicating each other's efforts!

Secondly, in your post to the Word group, why did you fail to include the
part about Word *not* crashing when you used a new identity in Entourage?
That's essential information! More on that in a minute.

To answer your question directly below, the reason you don't see a new
Normal template is that Word is crashing too soon. The new Normal usually
shows up when you do a regular quit out of Word. So what you're seeing is
to be expected.

Back to Entourage. If Word is fine with a new identity (you have verified
this by switching identities more than once, right?) but crashes with the
Main Identity, then there has to be corruption in the Main Identity. The
only thing that lives in Entourage which is shared by Word (as far as I
know) is the Address Book.

You say that you rebuilt your Entourage identity. Did you do an Advanced
rebuild as well as a Typical rebuild? That's where I would start, followed
by another rebuild of your desktop. Please post back if/when you have done
so.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>

 

[Guest]

Beth;
Sorry for the posting confusion, I am trying to resolve
this problem for my 80 year old father who is Joe. I had
a printout of a portion of his original post, but could
not locate the thread. I will try the advanced rebuild
and rebuild the desktop. Then, I will advise you of my
findings. Thanks for your input.
Richard

 

[Richard]

Beth;
I did the advanced rebuild of Entourage followed by a
desktop rebuild. This seems to have solved the problem.
Thanks for the help.