Uninstall Word and reinstall failed... help!

[Deb Moy]

I am a Mac newbie, and now I've messed up my application somehow...

My Word application got corrupted, I think from an overaggressive HP
Printer driver that would not uninstall despite using their uninstall
program.

When I send Mac Word docs by email to PC users, PC users were
receiving two documents. One was unreadable, and the other one worked
fine... sometimes.

I tried uninstalling Word from the Applications folder by dragging it
to the Trash. Next I custom installed Word into the same location
using the original application CD.

Now I get an error message that says "The application Word has
unexpectedly quit."

Help! Now what do I do?

Thank you!

 

[Michel Bintener]

Ok, let's get started.
You're saying that when you email PC users, they're receiving two files.
That's not Word's fault, that is a Mac/Windows difference. A Mac file
contains in fact two files, the original file and a resource fork with
additional information. You can't see that because resource forks are
invisible on your Mac. However, Windows doesn't use the resource fork, so it
automatically assumes that the resource fork bit is a file of its own, which
is why PC users can see two files. As you said, one of them works, the other
one (the name of that file is the same as the original file name, except
that it has a "." in first position) doesn't. You can prevent this from
happening by setting your e-mail client to automatically send
Windows-friendly attachments. Now you're not mentioning which version of
Office or Mac OS you're using, which makes it kind of hard to expain where
you can find that. However, in Entourage, it's in
Entourage>Preferences>Compose>Encode. Make sure you activate AppleDouble. In
Apple Mail 1.3.x, it's Edit>Attachments>Always Send Windows Friendly
Attachments.
Again, for your next problem, it would be much easier if you'd mentioned
which Office version you're using. Never uninstall Office by just dragging
the application into the trash bin. There are still many components
scattered all over your HD, which may cause the conflicts you're
experiencing. To uninstall, use the uninstaller that's provided by
Microsoft. If you're using Office v.X, the uninstaller can be found on your
Office CD, in the Value Pack. Office 2004's uninstaller is located in
Applications\Microsoft Office 2004\Additional Tools\Remove Office. After
removing it completely, try to re-install. If your problem persists, get
back in touch.

Hope this was helpful
Michel

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Deb:

When asking for help, you need to specify the version of your software and
operating system. This group supports more than ten different flavours of
"Word" and they're all different.

I shall assume you are using Word 2004/Office 2004 on Mac OS 10.3.

Navigate to your Applications folder on your hard disk. In the Microsoft
Office folder you will find an Additional Tools folder with an application
in it named Remove Office. Drag that to your desktop then double-click it
and follow the instructions.

If it's not on your hard disk, it's on your Office CD in the same location.
It needs to be on your desktop to work because it's about to remove the
folder that contains it

Now, track down your templates. They're in a folder named My Templates.
The one you are particularly interested in is called Normal (not
"Normal.dot" as it is on the PC. On the Mac it's called just Normal.)

Delete that. Empty your Trash. On the Mac, files can remain in-use from
the trash, and if they do, they can't be replaced. It's a trap for young
players...

Now get onto HP's website and get the latest version of that driver and
install it. I know all about that HP driver: I had a punch-up with it
too... The latest version behaves itself and works very well. However you
need to be aware that if you print a large file from Adobe PDF it can take a
very long time "thinking" about things before you get your first page out.
Don't lose patience and force-quite the thing: that's what causes the
trouble. I had to wait an hour once for a file that eventually printed
OK...

After you have gotten the HP driver re-installed and tested it from a
different application to ensure it is working OK (hint: NOT Adobe Reader
) you can then re-install Office.

Pop your Office CD into the computer and run the installer. Do a full
install of everything. There's no point in trying to cut things back. Even
on this laptop I install everything. Office is a "shared modules"
application. You will get peculiar effects with commands not being
available in some applications unless you install the lot.

Now, your original problem was that your encoding was set wrongly in your
email program. A Mac file natively IS two files. On the Mac, you only see
one, but a PC can see both. To prevent this, set your encoding to
"AppleDouble". That will work on every computer, and PCs will only see one
file.

If you are using Entourage, look at the help topic " Encode an attachment"
to see how to change this. Read the Tip at the bottom and change your
Default Encoding so you don't get the problem again.

Set your default encoding to BinHex and choose No Compression. Sorry,
compression is a great idea, but PCs will have trouble with it unless they
have installed Stuffit Expander. Stuffit Expander is free, but
unfortunately most people in the corporate world are not allowed to install
software, so you cannot use it.

If you need to compress a file, see in the Mac Help a topic named "Archiving
files and folders". That makes a Zip file that PCs can read.

Of course, if you are not using the versions and levels I guessed at the
top, none of this answer applies and we will both be very irritated. So
please include your versions in your question in future

Cheers

I am a Mac newbie, and now I've messed up my application somehow...

My Word application got corrupted, I think from an overaggressive HP
Printer driver that would not uninstall despite using their uninstall
program.

When I send Mac Word docs by email to PC users, PC users were
receiving two documents. One was unreadable, and the other one worked
fine... sometimes.

I tried uninstalling Word from the Applications folder by dragging it
to the Trash. Next I custom installed Word into the same location
using the original application CD.

Now I get an error message that says "The application Word has
unexpectedly quit."

Help! Now what do I do?

Thank you!

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410