Office Assistant

[danh]

I have lost my Office Assistant and get a message each time I use WOrd, Excel
etc

The message is
There are no Office assistant character files present on the system. Please
run Setup in maintenance mode and intall at least character.

I don't know how to do this. Can somebody help me?

Thanks
Danielle

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

Before you run the full setup...since you say you lost them, meaning
they WERE installed before...get out your Office CD and click Help >
Detect and Repair (assuming you're using a version with that option).
You'll probably need to insert the CD at some point.

If the problem is corruption, this should fix the problem.

Also...what version ARE you using and do you have more than one
version on your system? I had this problem and know a fix, but it only
comes into play if you have more than one version of Office on the
same system as I do. If you do, let me know and I'll tell you how to
fix it in that case.

Good luck...


Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant, Microsoft MVP
MOS Certified, Editor/TechTrax

Free MS Tutorials: http://www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Free Word eBook: http://www.mousetrax.com/books.html
Optimize your business docs: http://www.mousetrax.com/consulting
Learn VBA the easy way: http://www.mousetrax.com/techcourses.html

 

[danh]

Thanks for your help Dian. This morning when I swithched on my PC and
started Word I didn't get the message that the office assistant was misssing
and everything works as usual. I don't know what happened yesterday when I
was working. I have only one version of Office on my PC (2003).

Regards,
Danielle

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

HA...my FAVORITE solution..."when in doubt, reboot!"<g>

I noticed the problem when I had 2003 and 2000 on the same system. If
I had "Rocky" opened in 2003 (which I usually do) and then open 2000,
often times I'd get that error.

The trick to fix it I discovered was to close 2000. Go back to 2003
and turn Rocky off. Then open 2000 and turn the asst back on and it
would fix itself.

Not sure what happened in your case, but if it happens again and
annoys you while you're working...try the reboot again. ;-)



Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant, Microsoft MVP
MOS Certified, Editor/TechTrax

Free MS Tutorials: http://www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Free Word eBook: http://www.mousetrax.com/books.html
Optimize your business docs: http://www.mousetrax.com/consulting
Learn VBA the easy way: http://www.mousetrax.com/techcourses.html

 

[danh]

Hi Dian,

I think you are right to say that the problem arises when 2 versions of
Office are on 1 PC. The same problem happenned to me again yersterday. I
realised that I was working on FrontPage and that my version of FrontPage is
2002 and my Office is 2003. So I rebooted my PC and got the Office assistant
again.

Thanks again for your help as it made me see where the problem was.

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

Good sleuthing!<smile> Yes, that could be it. 2002 doesn't play too
well with other. I had to remove that version from my computer and
when I did...I realized that I had fewer conflicts with 2000 and
2003...although I DID still have the "Rocky" situation. But at least I
learned how to fix it...as have you now.

Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant, Microsoft MVP
MOS Certified, Editor/TechTrax

Free MS Tutorials: http://www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Free Word eBook: http://www.mousetrax.com/books.html
Optimize your business docs: http://www.mousetrax.com/consulting
Learn VBA the easy way: http://www.mousetrax.com/techcourses.html

 

[Brian L]

I have the same problem while only running Office 2003. The same problem
mentioned here occurs every time I use FrontPage 2003. When the assistant
pops up and I click "hide", from there on every time I open any Office
application this same pop up shows up.

I reboot...still there. I click detect and repair...same problem. It is
annoying and the only way I can ever get rid of it is to restore to just
before I used FrontPage 2003. Any tips for this? I'd prefer not to have to
restore but so far it's the only thing that gets rid of the error.

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

Well, I don't use FrontPage (use Dreamweaver since ver 3) so I don't
know about the FP issue. But I do know that I was getting the same
problem when I had 2000, 2002 and 2003 installed on my desktop. I had
Outlook 2003 set as the running version of email.

I always had Rocky sitting on my desktop for OL (which runs 24x7). I'd
open Word 2003 and Rocky would pop up. But if I had to open Word 2000
(and possibly 2002, can't remember that version for sure), I would
VERY OFTEN get the error message in Word 2000 saying that the asst
wasn't installed properly and that I'd have to reinstall.

And once I closed 2000, then I'd get errors with 2003. I dealt with
the error message for a time, but then got frustrated and started
experimenting.

I discovered that...if I closed both Word versions and then moved to
Outlook and clicked to close Rocky within Outlook, then I would move
to Word 2003, open it and turn ON the office assistant and turn him
off again. Then I could open 2000 without any error.

So it's a bit of a crap shoot, but there's some juggling between
on/off and the versions that allows you to turn him off so you can
open the problem version without the constant error (and without Rocky
or any Asst for that version).

Sorry I can't provide more specific details. But it DID work for me
and worked consistently whenever I'd forget to turn Rocky off prior to
opening 2000 to get the error back. Most times I remember to shut him
down before I open the older version and that always keeps the error
away.

Good luck...



Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant, Microsoft MVP
MOS Certified, Editor/TechTrax

Free MS Tutorials: http://www.mousetrax.com/techtrax
Free Word eBook: http://www.mousetrax.com/books.html
Optimize your business docs: http://www.mousetrax.com/consulting
Learn VBA the easy way: http://www.mousetrax.com/techcourses.html

 

[Brian L]

I actually asked a couple of computer science professors i know at Purdue
about this problem. They said based on their personal use and feedback from
others this problem occurs quite often wiht office 200 and 2003 but is very
common with FrontPage 2003.

He did say sometimes rebooting helps if it the error did not occur with
FrontPage, but with other office programs. But with FP it often requires a
restore. This seems to be something MS should really look into. These little
glitches can be very time consuming and aggravating. I started asking fellow
PhD students about this. One said she had the same issue with office 03 and
FP 03. Reported it but the response did nothing to resove it. Sounds like a
more common issue than I anticipated and probably worth developing a patch
for.

 

[AndrewR]

There is a hotfix for this problem (KB840992) but I have had no luck getting
it from MS. I was just on the phone with them and the helpful bubbly lady who
took my information passed me over to a technical support specialist who can
help me with that hotfix, but them I was told they were closed (it's true
that while I was on hold hearing about how great Vista is the time rolled
over to 3:00 Pacific time). Not much help.