Why won't Word start up?

[xqqqqme]

I've had my new Dell desktop (WinXP Home) for a couple of weeks now and, upon
receiving it, I did a fresh install of Office 2000 that I had on my old unit.
Up until today, it worked perfectly. But now Word will not start up. It
starts to load, opening a window with no contents, and then hangs. All I can
do is quit the app via the Task Manager. Other Office apps...Excel and
Outlook open fine...at least further than Word (though Outlook shows a
Runtime error).

Today I removed Office 2000 and did a fresh install. I also went to the MS
Office update site and had all updates downloaded and installed. Last night
Norton ran an entire scan of the HD and there are no viruses. I even ran
Norton AV specifically on the two doc files I received via email last
night...no sign of trouble.

What could possibly be the problem here? It had been working fine for many
days.

 

[Anne Troy]

Sounds like a bad normal.dot file. See:
http://www.officearticles.com/word/steps_to_troubleshooting_microsoft_word.htm
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[xqqqqme]

Thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, none of the three steps on the
page your link connected me to had any effect.

Step 1 - Deleting the normal.dot file -- brought me to the same empty window
and a lockup.

Step 2 - Run Detect and Repair -- since Word will not open far enough to get
to the Help menu, I can't perform this step.

Step 3 - Usinge regedit to Dump the Windows registry key -- same result as
Step 1

Does this provide any additional diagnosis?

 

[Anne Troy]

Generally, in troubleshooting applications, we don't do it to find out
what's wrong or what happened. We do it to get the end result: a working
application. If you did not finish the steps, likely that's exactly what you
need to do to fix it.
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[xqqqqme]

Perhaps I was less than clear. There are three steps shown on that page. I
attempted to perform all three. I *cannot* perform Step 2 because Word will
not open far enough for me to do it. That's why I cannot "finish the steps."
Performing Steps 1 and 3 resulted in no change to the situation. Exactly
what is it that I am missing?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

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

 

[xqqqqme]

Thanks, Suzanne...unfortunately, I'm still stuck.

It *does* start when I Run winword.exe /a

However, taking care of the template situation (renaming or removing .dot
files, including normal.dot) did nothing. Renaming the Data folder in the
registry key did not change anything. And I am not on a network, so my
printer driver is (and always has been) on my HD.

I also made sure that Norton Anti-Virus had the Nav plug-in disabled.

And the CD key that came with my Office 2000 is not the faulty one.

Puzzling...



And, the

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The only possible factor you haven't mentioned is add-ins (unless that was
included in your first list item). See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm. Also,
don't overlook the possibility that the printer driver has become damaged;
it might be worthwhile to delete and reinstall the printer.

 

[xqqqqme]

Thanks again for the replies...this is a fresh install of Word 2000...I'm not
exactly sure what add-ins are, but I've done nothing but a) install it and b)
have the MS Update service identify what updates were needed and then
download and install them.

As for the printer, I removed the printer via the Control Panel and then
reinstalled the printer via XP's hardware plug and play and the Canon
supplied CD for the driver. The result, unfortunately, is still no change.
Word gets to exactly the same spot -- after drawing an initial window (empty)
it just hangs.

 

[xqqqqme]

A follow up:

The information found at the link you provided states, in part:

"Word 2000 and higher complicate things pointlessly and annoyingly; any .DOT
files stored in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup (or
equivalent, if you installed Word somewhere else) will be loaded as an
Add-in, regardless of what your setting is under Tools + Options + File
Locations + Startup. However, you can fix this by deleting any such files or,
if you do want them loaded, by moving them into your “real†Startup folder."

There are no files in my Startup folder at all -- .dot or otherwise.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Some add-ins are not .dot files in the Startup folder. If you follow the
directions in
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm to add
the COM Add-ins... command to your Tools menu, Word can look for COM
add-ins, but some add-ins are not found even that way. For example, one of
the worst offenders is the Microsoft Works Suite Add-in for Word, which
isn't listed anywhere except in Add/Remove Programs.

 

[Anne Troy]

My most humble apologies!!! I used to have "reinstall" as a step in my old
article. Since I wrote the new one, I just say that at the very end of the
article. And that, unfortunately, is what I believe you need to do. Please
forgive me for being a lame-o. And good luck!! Step 4 would be: If that
doesn't do it, you'll need to completely uninstall Word, and reinstall it.

************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

And, to make it quite clear, "completely uninstall" means using Eraser2k.exe
to eradicate all traces of Normal.dot, Registry settings, etc. Otherwise, an
uninstall/reinstall does not overwrite most of the settings that may be
causing the problem.

 

[Anne Troy]

Hi, Suzanne. I changed both my Word troubleshooting and my manual removal of
Office articles to have links to Eraser.
************
Anne Troy
www.OfficeArticles.com