Word 2007 crashing when opening a document

[Jochen T.]

Hi all,

I hope someone can help me get around this problem which has stolen half
a day already...

WORD 2007 (Office Ultimate 2007) is installed on a Window 7 (64bit OS)
computer and was just working fine.

All of a sudden, since this morning WORD 2007 does not open some of my
existing documents (docx) any more and crashes when I attemp to do so
(details below).

I have followed all the advises I could find online and
deleted temporary files and the registry key under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER...WORD\12.0\Data. In addition, I have checked the
normal.dotm template and I went through the Office repair options. But
still the documents do not open. Even more strange: If I access the
document from a different user account on the same machine, I can open
it. If I access it from another computer via a shared drive, I can open
it, too. So, the document does not seem to be corrupted. From my
perspective, the reason for this issue must be related to the user
account, some temporary files or registry keys... But I don't have any
more ideas.

I have also installed Office 2007 SP2 this morning, but still no luck.

The error details on the machine where the problem occurs are:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: WINWORD.EXE
Application Version: 12.0.6514.5001
Application Timestamp: 4a8e09fd
Fault Module Name: wwlib.dll
Fault Module Version: 12.0.6514.5001
Fault Module Timestamp: 4a8e0cdc
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0002ee53
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1031

Additional information about the problem:
LCID: 1033
Brand: Office12Crash
skulcid: 1033

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Any ideas?


Thank you,

Jochen

 

[Terry Farrell]

wwlib.dll errors are usually because you have the wrong version installed.
But that's strange as I thought that it was shared across all profiles on a
computer.

Try Starting Word in Safe Mode to see if you can open a document. From Start
| Run (Winkey+R), type in

winword /a

and press Enter. Now try opening the documents. Does it work?

 

[Jochen T.]

Terry, thanks for your quick response. This thing is driving me nuts....
I am a computer specialist, at least I thought I am one until this
problem occurred this morning...

I did what you suggested. And I had done it before but forgot to mention
it in my initial posting. Guess what: It does not work. Word opens with
an empty document but as soon as I try to open my document, it crashes.
And, as I said, another user on the same machine can open the document
without any problems...

Any additional ideas? Is there any other place Word 2007 stores user
related settings that could prevent Word from opening a document for one
user and let another user open that same document?

 

[Terry Farrell]

It is obviously a profile dependent bug and these are EXTREMELY difficult to
diagnose. I have wasted many a man hour with fruitless results, so these
days I give in and create a new profile. If possible, I keep the old profile
available for a few days just in case anything is still needed: otherwise it
is is a case of rescuing what you think needs keeping and then delete it and
start a fresh.

Terry

 

[Jochen T.]

And how do I know it's not gonna happen again to the fresh profile the
other day?

Is there any way of removing all user related information for Word or
Office so I do not lose all settings because of creating a new
user/profile? Is there any chance of comparing the settings of user A
(not working) with those of user B (working)?

Thanks again for your support.

Jochen

 

[Karen]

Jochen,

I have the same problem even down to Office Ultimate 2007 but Vista 64 bit
OS. I did try the data key solution suggested by Terry but no difference.

I am convinced that a recent Microsoft update broke it. I went back to a
2/9 restore point and everything worked so, in the meantime, I'm just
avoiding any Microsoft updates until I read somewhere that the problem has
been reported and a fix has been made.

Karen

 

[Jochen T.]

Karen,

thank you for your feedback. It's good to know that I am not the only
one experiencing this problem.

Forgive me, but I have some more questions for you: Did you have the
exact same issue? I mean: Did this only affect one user on that machine
whereas a clean user (newly created) could access the documents without
any problems? Or does it affect any user in your case? Did you find out
exactly which update broke your installation? And what do you mean by "a
2/9 restore point"?

Looking forward to your response,

Jochen

 

[Terry Farrell]

I don't know it is not going to happen again. It has never happened to me
and I don't know how users corrupt their profiles, but I frequently get the
problem to resolve.

Settings are stored in the normal.dotm in the User's profile and in the
registry. Copying the normal.dotm into the new profile will help. I wouldn't
mess with the registry.

As I said before, comparing profiles, etc to try and find the problem can
take all of your life and you still may not find the corruption. OTOH, you
may get lucky but I don't recommend it.

If it happens in Safe Mode, then it is not a Word problem, it is much more
likely to be a (corrupt) permissions problem. We know that Word is OK
because it works for other users on the same installation: starting in Safe
Mode bypasses all customisations, add-ins, macros, normal.dotm so that Word
opens in its default install condition. If it still crashes it is something
external to Word.

Terry