Word has stopped working opening on Vista

[PatD]

I've seen several messages about opening Word and getting the message that
Word has stopped working.

I've used Word since V3 and have not had problems until Word 07 running on
Vista Ultimate. I've had the problem on 2 computers, both had Office
installed from scratch on Vista, with no updating involved. SP1 made no
difference.

After getting the problem I can reboot and it will go away. SP1 fixed the
blue screen problem with Excel, but the word startup problem has persisted.
It seems to happen just before the styles load on the ribbon. (That may
point to normal.dotm as suggested on several posts.)

On my new workstation, Word worked for about 2 weeks and then started with
the same startup problem. It seems to have something to do with IE running,
but I'm not sure.

I just renamed Normal.dotm and the problem has gone away for now.

It would seem to me that Microsoft can write code to recover from a few of
these causes. Get us out of Error Message Hell that puts out these nebulous
messages and gives no guidance on what to do. Microsoft, your better than
that.

Figure it out. Trap the error, and either allow the user to fix it on the
fly or provide a link to a help topic.

 

[Terry Farrell]

A long post full of unnecessary detail.

I gather you get an error when starting Word2007 in Vista? What is the error
message? Are both Vista and Word patched up to date?

See if this helps you:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

 

[PatD]

Since I renamed the normal.dotm, I have not see the message, but it was
rather generic, "Word has stopped working and will close" or something like
that. It is the message you're seeing all over the forum.

I am on the latest versions of Word and Vista.

I'm sorry about the detail, but the fact that it was on different machines,
and had not happened with previous versions of Word is the kind of things
that we ask the users of our software when we run into nebulous problems.
I'm not looking for you to provide a solution. I think you've done a good
job at addressing this error on many other posts and one of those helped me,
so I'm grateful. Thank you!

As the owner of a vertical software company and Microsoft Certified Partner
(ISV), I'm encouraging you to rattle Microsoft's cage a little to get them to
fix it. As an MVP you have good access to that team.

PatD

 

[Terry Farrell]

You can be assured that we have had much to say about W2007!

Terry

 

[Laurence]

PatD,

I have the same error message when closing Word 2007, "Word has stopped
working and will close", as well as all sorts of problems with Word 2007 that
I have never seen before and make it completely unusable. See my posts titled
"Word 2007 buggy and crashes". Your original comment was 100% on target.
Wasted time on this is simply stunning. I'm surprised this has not yet showed
up in the main stream media (TV, news, etc.).

Laurence

 

[andrewph]

I have had exactly the same problem. The error message tells me that
Microsoft will get in touch with me "IF" there is a solution!

I bought my Dell laptop 6 weeks ago, and this problem just occurred.

I am not going to mess around rewriting programs. I want a fix from
MS and I want it now.

 

[Laurence]

Looks like MS will have another class action suit on its hands.

Vista Ultimate + Office Ultimate/Enterprise 2007 is ~$1000.

I never did get it to work.
And MS says I have to pay more for tech support !

Never mind all my wasted hours ... for a defective product.

 

[jdperk]

I am running Windows Ultimate X64 and Office 2007. I created a standard user
account to share the laptop with my wife and Word on my account works fine
however on her account it will error out while closing stating "Not
Responding". Her word has all sorts of issues like the cursor will not move
with a mouse click to change its position, can not change any user options,
and a few other bugs.

I installed SP1 and Vista is up todate but no solution. I even tried to
give her full admin privileges but no fix.

Any fixes out there?

 

[Gia]

Hello,
I am having the same maddening problem of when I open most documents in Word
2007 running on Vista, where I get the error message of Word has stopped
working and will close, then error message saying cannot find file.
Can you explain:
After getting the problem I can reboot and it will go away. SP1 fixed the
blue screen problem with Excel, but the word startup problem has persisted.
It seems to happen just before the styles load on the ribbon. (That may
point to normal.dotm as suggested on several posts.)
What / where is changing normal.dotm?
Thank you so much!

Gia

 

[jdperk]

Gia,

I found a fix and so far everything is working. Go to Start-Run then type
in "winword.exe /a" you might have to add its directory. I found this on a
Word org site that I can't remember the name. The /a switch forces a utility
to run that resets the registry for Word 2007. This worked for me with Vista
X64 running Word 2007.

We, my wife and I, are not fully familar with all the new menu structures in
Word 2007 so to get the menus to stay opened at the top just double click
their tab. Microsoft couldn't just leave a good thing alone and wacked out
all the menus and made them bulky and cludgy in my opinion. I would love an
option to revert back to 2003 menu structure so I could get some work done.
Its a word processor for heavens sake it just needs to work not be changes
every time.

I hope this helps.

James

 

[jdperk]

Gia,

I just learned that the "winword.exe /a" launches Word 2007 without the
template and addins installed. That isn't the best solution to run Word in
and it doesn't fix the problem. Deleting the Normal.dotm template and let
Word rebuild it might work but it didn't work in my case. I ran across this
artical

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13880_1-9874528-68.html

That states to delete a registry value and let Word rebuild it to fix the
problem. This has fixed my problem but one must be careful when working in
the registry.

Quote:
"Word 2007 crashed consistently unless it was loaded with the /a switch
which not only prevents addins from loading, but also loads word without
reading the registry key -
[http://HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\M...USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data]
Eventually I removed the entire registry key
(HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data) and the problem resolved.
Word rebuild the key and I have not had the problem since. Interestingly,
Microsoft published a VERY general KB in December (#940791) that seems to
refer to this issue."

How To:
Start-Run then type in regedit to get to the registry. Drill down to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data and delete.
Close the registry and reboot. Launch word again and see if things work
better.

This worked for me so far.

I hope this helps.

James