Word has stopped working. Crash!

[Stephen St. Denis]

You probably seen other posts with this title, but none of the suggested
solutions in this newsgroup and other forums work.

This error occurs both for Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the Microsoft Office
Professional suite on a single user Vista Home Premium x64 machine. Both
versions were not installed at the same time. Outlook and Excel 2007 have
the same behavior. This happens when I start Word except in safe mode, but
I cannot open a file. The problems started occurring shortly after
installing Norton Internet Security 2009, although I can't see any
connection. All updates and Service Pack 1 have been applied.

Specifically, this is what I have tried:

- Delete the Options and Addin keys in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\Word
- Run Repair from the disc.
- Run the diagnostic program with no errors. It says that to complete the
processs, I need a file which will be downloaded within the next week. What
file and why can't I download it now?
- Uninstall Office 2007, clean the registry, reinstall Office 2007.
- Make sure the Word\STARTUP under my Roaming profile is empty.
- Verified that my Canon printer driver works.
- Temporarily disabled Norton Internet Security 2009.
There are two strange things:
- There is no Word Data registry key to rename.
- When I rename the Normal template, a new one is not created.

Any assistance would be much apppreciated since I've been trying to fix this
for a week.
(It's a good thing Microsoft doesn't build planes. They would be falling out
of the sky like flies.)

 

[Terry Farrell]

Norton is the most likely cause. Open Norton and disable the Office Plug-in
option. It is a classic symptom.

There MUST be a Word Data Key, but it is unlikely to be that because it
wouldn't affect OL or Excel. The other possibility is the printer driver
either incompatibly, corrupt or missing.

 

[Beth Melton]

(It's a good thing Microsoft doesn't build planes. They would be falling
out of the sky like flies.)

I realize this is a joke but the underlying issue is typically (not always
but typically) third-party interferences that cause issues in the Office
applications such as third-party add-ins, virus scanners, device drivers,
etc. To use your airplane analogy, planes would be falling out of the sky if
those who maintained them started adding a bunch of after market utilities.
;-)

As Terry noted, the most likely cause in your situation is Norton Antivirus
and the Office Plug-in option found in the Miscellaneous section of Norton
Options. See, the Office Plug-in can malfunction and view the files you are
trying to open as as a hostage takeover and it prevents the takeover by
refusing to allow any of your files to load into the application. <grin>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx

 

[Stephen St. Denis]

I turned the plug-in off about a week ago. See original message.

 

[Beth Melton]

You noted you "Temporarily disabled Norton Internet Security 2009" that's
not the same as turning off the "Office Plug-in" or the option may be named
"Turn off scanning for Microsoft Office Documents" depending on the version
of Norton you are using.

The file that is used to scan Office documents stays resident even if virus
scanning is turned off and has been known to stay resident even if Norton is
uninstalled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx

 

[Stephen St. Denis]

I did the latter. Anyways, since no other suggestion works, I used the
Norton Removal Tool 2-3 to completely cleanse my machine of any Norton
files, deleted all the Office and Symantec registry entries for good
measured and reinstalled Office and everything worked fine. So unless
Norton comes up with a fix in the next couple of days, I'm going with
Firefox (more trustworthy and advanced than IE7), Gmail( best anti-spam),
AVG(highly recommended) and Spybot.

Thanks everone for trying to help.
S

 

[Terry Farrell]

Sounds a good plan. I slightly prefer AviraAV rather than AVG - but I don't
think you'll go wrong with either. Aviary has a slightly fewer demands than
AVG and seems more transparent. The TeaTimer part of SpyBot is well worth
the slight inconvenience of having to approve registry changes all the
time - but at least it enable you to keep a firm handle on the registry. I'm
not so sure about Firefox: I never used it as I have never had problems with
IE7.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Spell check too clever: Avira not Aviary!

Terry

Sounds a good plan. I slightly prefer AviraAV rather than AVG - but I
don't think you'll go wrong with either. Aviary has a slightly fewer
demands than AVG and seems more transparent. The TeaTimer part of SpyBot
is well worth the slight inconvenience of having to approve registry
changes all the time - but at least it enable you to keep a firm handle on
the registry. I'm not so sure about Firefox: I never used it as I have
never had problems with IE7.

 

[Beth Melton]

That's for the update, Stephen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Melton
What is a Microsoft MVP? http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/mvpfaqs

Guides for the Office 2007 Interface:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/HA102295841033.aspx