Word 2003 Startup Crash (after "Problem With Some Preferences")

[Larry]

Within the last day, Word 2003 is crashing. On startup, Word states that
"Word has detected a problem with some of the current preferences. Would you
like to restore these preferences to their default values?"

Regardless of my answer, Word then crashes, with a signature of:
AppName: winword.exe AppVer: 11.0.8134.0 AppStamp:461557b7
ModName: msvcrt.dll ModVer: 7.0.2600.2180 ModStamp:41109752
fDebug: 0 Offset: 00037464

Things I've tried:
(1) I've uninstalled Office 2003, then reinstalled, then installed all
updates. Same problem.

(2) I've started in Safe mode, and nothing shows up as Disabled.

(3) The only thing I could think of that was new on my PC was Adobe Reader's
upgrade to version 8.1. I uninstalled it; no luck.

I have to admit I'm stumped. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Try the steps shown here:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQS/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

Most likely, the problem is with registry entries, probably the Data key.

 

[Larry]

Try the steps shown here:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQS/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

Most likely, the problem is with registry entries, probably the Data key.

You were right. It hadn't occurred to me that uninstalling MS Office
would leave the registry settings behind.

Thank you!

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Office, bless its little heart, is extremely protective when you uninstall
and reinstall. It not only preserves your registry entries, but a bunch of
of customizations as well, including anything you've done to Normal.dot or
normal.dotm.

As a result, removing and reinstalling is the least effective way to try to
fix a problem with Office. Alas, most users don't know this, and end up
merely spinning their wheels rather than actually solving any given problem.

Office really needs to have a "remove customized settings" option when you
uninstall. Or, better still, it would be great if there were a repair option
that specifically reset all settings back to "factory" condition. Running
Word, for example, with the /r switch accomplishes part of this, but not all
of it.