word and excel will not open

[Poppy]

Whenever I try to open word or exel, I get the error message: "winword.exe"
or "excel.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows..." I have
tried reinstalling and repairing the program many times. Outlook works just
fine, however. A previous installation of office on this computer used to
work before I reformatted a month ago. What can I do?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Open Microsoft Word and from the Toolbar select:
Help > Detect and Repair. Afterward, visit the Microsoft
Office Update web site and install all the recommended
Service Packs and updates for your version of Microsoft Office.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/default.aspx

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Whenever I try to open word or exel, I get the error message: "winword.exe"
| or "excel.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows..." I have
| tried reinstalling and repairing the program many times. Outlook works just
| fine, however. A previous installation of office on this computer used to
| work before I reformatted a month ago. What can I do?

 

[Beth Melton]

This could be caused by a third-party conflict, typically an add-in
for Word and Excel. Troubleshoot the Word issue first and it point you
to the Excel issue.

First go to Start/Run and start Word in a troubleshooting mode using
the following command:

winword /a

Note the space before the forward slash. If Word starts then the
problem does not lie in the installation of Word. IOW,
uninstalling/reinstalling/detect and repair, will resolve the issue.

Then determine if you are using any global templates: go to
Tools/Templates and Add-Ins and see if there are any global templates
or add-ins listed. If so they are located in one of your Startup
folders. The location of the Word\Startup folder can be found under
Tools/Options/File Locations and the Office\Startup folder can be
found in the Office installation path..

Take a look in each folder and if you find more than one file move
them one at a time and try duplicating the error after each file is
moved out of the folder until you determine which one is causing the
problem.

As of Word 2000, Word can have COM add-ins. COM are added via the
Registry rather than the Startup folders. To determine whether or not
you are using COM Add-In you can add the "COM Add-in" command to your
toolbar:

- Right-click any toolbar and select Customize
- On the Commands tab, select the Tools category
- Locate COM Add-Ins on the right
- Drag/Drop to a location of your choice

For more information on COM Add-Ins, see this article:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm

For additional troubleshooting steps see this article:
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

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

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

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