Word 2007 'scanning for virus' never ends; Word will not start

Y

yood

Hi. We have Vista and Office 2007. I loaded MS Visual Studio 2003 on the
system. Beforehand, I read the Microsoft page regarding Visual Studio 2003
and Vista:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2005/bb188244.aspx

Nothing seemed extreme, so I proceeded to install it and it worked well.

However, now when I open a Word document, Word displays 'scanning for
viruses' at the bottom of the screen and never stops scanning. It never
allows me into Word. I uninstalled the MS Visual Studio 2003, uninstalled
Office 2007, re-installed Office 2007 but the problem persists.

I changed the Winword.exe registry keys to start Word with the '/a' flag.
While it no longer enters the virus scan it also disables all other add-ins
and is not suitable.

Is there any help for me? I just want to run Word normally...
 
Y

yood

Thankx for the response. I have since read other post with the same issue.

We use Sophos Anti Virus. I tried removing Sophos straight away, but it
still happens. I can't find any mention of Sophos plug-ins etc. on their
site. I'm guessing it's something like that, but getting an answer is a tough
one.

Thankx
mark
 
B

Beth Melton

Since the issue no longer occurs when you start Word using the /a switch
then the likely culprit is an old third-party add-in. Check your Startup
folders (or use Windows Search) for files with a *.wll extension. This older
type of add-in is known to cause the "scanning for viruses" message to
display since Word is using the same hooks third party virus scanners use
(such as Norton) to scan for macros.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
 
S

st

I have the same issue, but I started winword.exe /a, I am STILL geting the
"running virus scan..." message at the bottom.

I use avast antivirus, but have all of the providers "paused".

What is causing this? My install used to work fine, now for the past 2-3
weeks, I am getting this issue (I have similar problems with Outlook starting
up -- VERY long startup time). I have Vista Home Premium.
 
T

Terry Farrell

It is an Anti Virus problem. Word does not have any AV. Have you tried
support for your AV?
 
S

st

I turned off the antivirus, and yet when I load, I am STILL GETTING the
running virus scan... message in the bottom window. I can open files in
notepad with no issues or slowdown.

I tried to open a simple TEXT file using word, and still get the "Running
virus scan..."

I have checked taskmanager, and the avast software is NOT running.
Are there any other checks/way to debug this?? How can I tell what is
causing this -- where is the list of add-ons to word 2007? I can try to
disable them, but running from the cmd.exe, winword.exe /safe and winword.exe
/a both have the same issue. I thought /safe would prevent any of this from
running (including the antivirus).

This seems to have just recently started -- about the last 3 weeks or so.
 
S

st

BTW, this seems to be happening with all of the Office 2007 programs -- Excel
is also exhibiting this issue (Running virus scan....) and even Outlook 2007
is slow to strat up (takes a few minutes at least before it will respond to
anything).
 
T

Terry Farrell

Just because you 'turned it off' doesn't mean that any Office plug-in that
it employs has been disabled. Notepad performance is irrelevant because it
is not part of Office, so Office plug-in will not affect it. Also Notepad is
PLAIN TEXT and cannot be embedded by a virus, so a Notepad plug-in would be
useless.

As I advised, ask the AV support: that's their purpose in life.

Terry
 
S

st

Terry,
thanks for the help with this. I have sent notes to the forum for avast, so
I hope that they will get back to me.

Here is the list from Word for add-ins -- doesn't look like there is
anything specific for anti-virus here -- should I be looking elsewhere (word
options -- add-ins):
Active App Add-ins
M.soft Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Office Design-Time Adaptor for Word 2003
M.soft Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Office Design-Time Adaptor for Word 2007

Inactive Application Add-Ins:
ActionsPane
ActionsPane3
Custom XML Data
Headers, Footers, and Watermarks
Hidden Text
Microsoft Actions Pane
Microsoft Actions Pane 3

No Document related add-ins
No Disabled Application Add-ins.

I have run the office diagnostics - no issues.

If I run with /safe, shouldn't that disable any AV plug-in??
I've tried to do that, but I still get the "running virus scan..." issue.
Any place else I should look for add-ins???

Thanks!
 
S

st

Terry,
the Avast V folks said that they do nothing with add-ins. They suggested
that maybe a Norton install was corrupt or incorrectly running and to use the
Norton removal tool which I did.

PROBLEM SOLVED!! I had never done the install (always cancelled when it
tried to install on start up), but I guess SOMETHING was installed for it.
Thanks for your help.
 
T

Terry Farrell

Garfield 'n Oldie did mention that Norton has an AV plug-in. One of the
problems with NAV is that once it is installed, one of the critical dlls
doesn't get unregistered or uninstalled when NAV is uninstalled and you have
now seen the result.

Terry
 
M

Mike S.

Hello Terry --

I have the identical problem as described above. I use ZoneAlarm, so the
recommendations do not quite work for me. I have spent about 4 hours trying
to fix the problem and have given up. As far as I'm concerned, Office 2007 is
a deeply flawed product. In Microsoft's goal to improve safety, they have
released a product that will not operate in a friendly manner (or even load
for that matter). It is bad enough just getting accustomed to Vista, but this
is simply insane. How in the world did this product ever pass your
reliability testing before release? I am now using OpenOffice in place of the
MS Office suite. No problems so far. Files open very quickly. I will
periodically check to see if Microsoft releases a fix (note: SP1 does not
help). This is very sad state of affairs.
 
T

Terry Farrell

Microsoft Office does NOT have any AV capability. It is the third party AV
add-ins that are at fault. How can you blame MS for a third party writing
crap?

If you want to read all about crap third party AV add-ins and how they don't
uninstall correctly, go to www.pchell.com where they also tell you how to
remove them properly. Symantec (Norton) is particularly bad - especially if
you have had a trial version installed - it leaves behind registered dlls
and registry entries that cause this type of problem in Word.

MS is the to be blamed for everything that goes wrong on a computer.

Terry
 
T

Terry Farrell

From his rant, I guess not.

Terry

Beth Melton said:
Did you see my reply in this thread? Old add-ins can cause the behavior
you see as well.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
Click to expand...
 
B

Beth Melton

I suspect he thinks he's talking to Microsoft and doesn't realize he's in a
peer-to-peer newsgroup.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
 
M

Mike S.

Hello Terry and Beth --

Hardly a rant. Please withhold your snide remark. I simply offered a
statement of my frustration. It is obvious from the thread that I am not the
only victim of this problem. And Terry, I DID READ Beth's thread -- it did
not help.

For the record, I do not use any Symantec product. I am well aware of its
misbehaviour. I am using Zonealarm Pro.

Second, I am installing the Office 2007 software on a brand new computer. I
have tried to fix the problem with your diagnostic program. I have also
uninstalled the program and manually edited the registry to remove the Office
keys (your uninstaller is also in need of work - it DID NOT clean the
registry after uninstall). I then reinstalled Office, but the same problem
occurs. Perhaps there are other keys I missed from my earlier uninstall.

Bottom line. MICROSOFT IS RESPONSIBLE for releasing a product that has a now
known problem. Your software testing team should investigate this problem and
offer a fix. You would think that uninstall/reinstall would clean up the
problem. Why do you not offer a method to shut down the virus check feature
in Office? Stop blaming other products. Fix yours!

I have used Office 2000 successfully for many years. I would be using it
today if I were assured that it would work with Vista. I am now using
OpenOffice which does not have the problem and opens my files just fine.
 
B

Beth Melton

My comment was not snide, simply an observation. I've noted you continue to
refer to the Microsoft applications as "ours" which they aren't. We're not
Microsoft employees. Microsoft may host these newsgroups but they do not
monitor them or answer questions. Those who answer questions do so
voluntarily.

Additionally, as Terry has noted, all Microsoft has done is provide the
virus scanning engine (the code) to enable third parties, such as virus
scanner manufacturers, to "hook" into Word. The reason the virus scanning
engine/code can't be disabled is for security reasons. If they (Microsoft)
added a means to disable it then it wouldn't be very secure. :)

What you are seeing is caused by a third party. The real question at this
point is actually which third-party you are encountering. If you would like
us to help you track it down we'd be happy to. However we would need your
willingness to cooperate on your end. IOW, we honestly could care less about
what you think about Microsoft products or whether you're switching to
OpenOffice -- we're only interested in answers to the questions we ask in
order to try and help you. We're just here to learn about the MS
applications we use for our daily work and try to help out when we can.
(FWIW, don't even hold stock in Microsoft. ;-) )

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
 

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