Word Hangs on Opening

[Major Malfunction]

I am working on someone else's computer trying to fix a strange problem. The
computer is a Dell with Windows Millenium Edition, 128 Mb RAM and Word as
part of Office Suite. For about the last three years, all has been well. No,
Word will not function and the entire system hags to the point the power
needs to be turned off: no keyboard or mouse activity.

When Word is called, either from a start menu or by opening an e-mail
attachment, word gets as far as generating the white box that says word and
then goes to Neverland. I've waited (im)patiently for as long as fifteen
minutes for something to happen and it never does. The only cure is to power
the entire system down.

So far, the system shows no sign of any virus, parasite or other bug. I've
uninstalled Word and reinstalled it with the owner's restore disc and even
uninstalled Word and installed Word from Office 2000 Pro. Same problem is
still happening: Word does not open.

Anyone have any clues?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

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

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Major Malfunction]

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

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Thanks for the help. I will try someof the suggestions and see if they work.
It is really strange there are no error messages generated (Word never
opens) and the problem reoccured even after I wiped out the old Word and did
a fresh installation.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Reinstalling rarely helps because it does not overwrite Normal.dot or the
Registry or remove add-ins from the Startup folder(s), and these are the
three primary causes of problems opening Word.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Major Malfunction]

Reinstalling rarely helps because it does not overwrite Normal.dot or the
Registry or remove add-ins from the Startup folder(s), and these are the
three primary causes of problems opening Word.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

I fixed it by renaming the Normal.dot file after the initial troubleshooting
step as suggested in the article. If I hadn't done it my self, I wouldn't
believe it could be so simple! Now the question remains: What caused this
file to become corrupt? The system has no virus or other nasty on it and
Word was working fine for a long time prior to this problem appearing.

 

[Beth Melton]

Please see my reply in the "Word Start up Error" thread.

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/