Tried All Ideas in "Problems opening Word"

[RickD]

Hi. Word 2002 opens and closes very slowly, about 30 seconds or longer. I
followed every suggestion in the thorough article "Problems opening Word":
renamed Normal.dot, deleted Data key, (no network printer), disabled Norton
AV Office plug-in. No effect. My "real" and "factory preset" Startup
folders are empty.

Interestingly, when I turned off Norton AV, times improved a bit, but still
15+ seconds.

I also used the Detect and Repair option Help, to no avail.

When I do Start/Run/winword.exe /a, Word opens immediately.

Any advice is very much appreciated.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

For diagnostic purposes, run the install printer wizard and install the
HP LaserJet III connected to "File". Do not run a printer test, if asked.
Slect it as the default printer. Quit and restart Windows.

Let us know.

Tom
MAMVP
Windows Shell/User

: Hi. Word 2002 opens and closes very slowly, about 30 seconds or
longer. I
: followed every suggestion in the thorough article "Problems opening
Word":
: renamed Normal.dot, deleted Data key, (no network printer), disabled
Norton
: AV Office plug-in. No effect. My "real" and "factory preset" Startup
: folders are empty.
:
: Interestingly, when I turned off Norton AV, times improved a bit, but
still
: 15+ seconds.
:
: I also used the Detect and Repair option Help, to no avail.
:
: When I do Start/Run/winword.exe /a, Word opens immediately.
:
: Any advice is very much appreciated.
: --
: Rick

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi. Word 2002 opens and closes very slowly, about 30 seconds or longer. I
followed every suggestion in the thorough article "Problems opening Word":
renamed Normal.dot, deleted Data key, (no network printer), disabled Norton
AV Office plug-in. No effect. My "real" and "factory preset" Startup
folders are empty.

Interestingly, when I turned off Norton AV, times improved a bit, but still
15+ seconds.

I also used the Detect and Repair option Help, to no avail.

When I do Start/Run/winword.exe /a, Word opens immediately.

Any advice is very much appreciated.

Starting with the /a switch disables all add-ins, Normal.dot, and the
registry entries. Since you've eliminated Normal.dot and the registry
as causes of the problem, that leaves an add-in.

There can be other add-ins besides the ones loaded from the Startup
folders. See the article at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011514521033.aspx for
steps to locate the others.

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

 

[RickD]

Thanks Jay. The article was helpful. I had earlier turned off the Norton AV
Office plug-in. Still, I also tried to unregister OFFICEAV.DLL as suggested,
but received a failure message with a return code of 0x8002801c.

The article pointed me to an area I don't know much about, Macros. I find
much of the problem does resolve when I go to Tools|Macros|Security, choose
Medium level and uncheck "Trust all installed add-ins and templates" on the
Trusted Sources tab.

Now when I open Word, I receive a prompt to Enable or Disable a macro in
Normal.dot in the Templates folder, and more macros in WKWDADDN.DLL in a
Works folder. If I disable them, Word opens and closes immediately. (I
can't find any macros in Normal.dot)

But each time I open Word, the two messages recur. Any advice you can
provide on what these are and how I can avoid their recurrence every time I
open Word would be appreciated.

 

[RickD]

Hi Tom. I did as requested, went well, but Word still has the problem. (See
reply to Jay).

Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

WKWDADDN.DLL is the Microsoft Works Suite Add-in for Word. If you are
running Word freestanding (not starting it from the Works Task Launcher),
you really need to uninstall this (through Control Panel | Add/Remove
Programs), as it causes many problems in Word.

 

[RickD]

Thanks Suzanne. Strange thing, I went to Control Panel to Remove it...it's
listed...but there is no box for Change/Remove when it is highlighted. In
fact, I noticed that many of my apps do not have the Change/Remove box. Any
reason you can think of for this absence? And any idea on how to remove it in
this case? Thanks in advance.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm afraid I don't know. The one and only time I did go to uninstall it this
option was available. Was Word running when you tried this?

 

[V S Rawat]

Hi folks.

I am also having the same problem as follows. I presented it
from mpwsn

Word 2002 (10.2627.2625) is not starting in my 98se.

It has been working ok since ages, but today afternoon, I was
working on a usual file, and it gave "encountered an error"
window.

Ever since it is not starting. Its splash screen shows but that
has only the name of the program, but rest of the message and
info on that box is blank.

Then it gives "faced some problem. restart window," etc. and
next time gives "whether to start in safe mode".

It starts in safe mode and works ok. There is no items
appearing in Help-About-disabled item.

What to do?

If this is not the ng for this post, please recommend the
correct one please.

In that ng, a kind member suggested me to see a url:

See the article "Problems opening Word" at:

http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

I went there, and posted my reply:

Visited the page:

applications quit without an error message as soon as they open
...

- No. Mine is Office 2002.
- Not all applications are quitting. Excel, Ppt, frontpage are
working alright. It is only word that is giving that error.
- Word also is working pretty well in safe mode.



That also gave the very same problem.
(It did not automatically ran that. I had to browse to winword
file.)

There is a Normal.dot 31 KB in C:\WINDOWS\Application
Data\Microsoft\Templates


Changing that to Normal.old and restarting word did not help in
any way.


There is no STARTUP-PATH in the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Options


That shows C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP

And that folder has nothing.


by looking in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\
directory (or equivalent, if you installed Word somewhere else)
for a folder named Startup

The folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Startup
is also empty.



That could be something.

There is no printer physically installed, and none is there in
Settings\Printers.

However, a few days ago I did try to install a printer, but
could not do it because I didn't have 98 CD with me at that
time to get drivers.

Has that left some residue on my system? how to find and remove
that?



yeah. I am having nav 2005.

A few days ago it stopped working, so I checked their site and
had updated some driver files I don't now remember.

When I had tried to uninstall/ reinstall word/office, it did
give error some oleaut32.dll, such version present whereas such
version required. System file update had aborted.

Now it is not giving that message.

diabled "office plug-in" in nav, but that did not help things.

Back to Square one.

The problem is still recurring.

It is win98se, and word 2002 which had worked ok for some 4
years.

Please help.

 

[RickD]

Hi Suzanne, I've been away. No, Word was not running when I noticed the
Uninstall option was missing. Do you think it would be helpful to just
Remove Word and reinstall it? If so, do I need to be concerned about the
Word updates that have been installed and can't be removed?

Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, uninstalling and reinstalling Word will accomplish nothing. It's the
Works Suite add-in you want to uninstall. I'm hesitant to suggest this, but
if you keep getting messages about WKWDADDN.DLL, perhaps the simplest thing
would be to find that file and delete it (or at least move it).

 

[Kenneth Coombes]

Hi, V S. I think I have the solution for you below. First my story. I
had this same exact problem for a couple of months (the problem of opening
Word, getting a blank splash, and then getting "Encountered a problem"
window. I tried multiple of ways to correct it a couple of months ago, even
using Microsoft Troubleshooting tool in the Support.dot file, which will
delete certain registry entries or normal.dot file, etc. and which will
restore these items if you find it was not the cause. But none of it
worked. Then I noticed that it effected only me as a user, not my son's
account. So today I called Microsoft for support and after spending hours
with them, they ended up suggesting that I backup my current user account
and create a new one. Don't worry, this is NOT the solution (although it
may work, it is absolutely NOT necessary). We indeed did start that
process, but it took so long because of all the files to back up that I
agreed to have them call me back on Monday (I won't need them now). So
freed from Microsoft I went back to my own experimenting, knowing that the
problem plague my user account only, and found the EXACT problem.

In the registry under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\UserInfo there is a
binary value also called UserInfo. This value has somehow become screwed
up; I don't know why. But I do know if you rename ..10.0\Word\UserInfo to
...\10.0\Word\OldUserInfo, then Word will start up fine. If after you start
Word you refresh your registry editor, you will see that a new UserInfo key
has been created.

Hope this helps you. Have a nice day
Kenneth