Word will not open - Word Has encountered an error and needs to cl

[Roman]

Hi

My system is XP home SP2 + IE6 + Symantec Winfax Pro 10.0 (although I also
have installed and then unistalled Winfax Pro 10.02)

I have been using Office 2000 SR1 Pro. Recently when i clicked on a .doc
file, Word initially opens but then an error message appears stating that
"Word Has encountered an error and needs to close". However, when I click on
the word icon in START/PROGRAMS/WORD the application opens OK and when i
click on 'open file' icon in the menu bar of the opened Word doc, I can now
browse and click on .doc files and be able to view them. I have unistalled
and reinstalled Office but the error remains. All other apps in Office 2000
work OK.

I then uninstalled Office 2000 and installed Office 97 Pro to see if i could
clear the error. Unfortunatley, Word 97 experienced the same error. However,
on this occasion even opening word via START/PROGRAMS/WORD gave the error
"Word Has encountered an error and needs to close".

When I go into START/RUN/ "winword.exe /a" , Word opens up OK. I have tried
renaming one of the Normal.dot files to Normal.old and deleting the
\\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Data key. Both these
did not work for Word 97.

I even did a number of System Restores to previous settings without any joy.

Please help!!

 

[Terry Farrell]

Because it starts OK when using the /a switch, it still indicates a bad
third party add-in. This would suggest that either the Winfax template is
still installed in the Word (or Office) Start-up folder or you have some
other add-in causing the bug - or possibly lack of or corrupt printer
driver. Unfortunately, uninstalling and reinstalling rarely fixes anything
in Office and what you have done (installing Office 97 without first
removing all the vestiges of Office 2000 using eraser2k.exe) has probably
now really messed up your system.

I suggest reading the following FAQ and see if that resolves your problem:

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

 

[Roman]

I have already tried some of the stuff described in the link as per my
original query. I removed 2000 with Windows Install clean up.
If all the potential solutions fail, would an XP reinstall help or will I
have to reformat the hard drive?
Thanks

 

[Roman]

I have read that the - eraser2k.exe - utility cannot be used with XP. Please
advise.

Also I think that I have fixed Word 97. When I went into Startup folder in
Office, there were 2 .dot files - each was called WFWORD2K.dot but one looked
like a temp file(i.e.it had~infront and was more transparent). I deleted
this last file and renamed the extention of the other from .dot to .old. I
then clicked on a word doc and hey presto it opened up. Can I now install
2000?

 

[Terry Farrell]

Yes. That should resolve the W2000 problem too.

When you say that eraser2k.exe cannot be used with XP, so you Windows XP or
Office XP?

Terry

I have read that the - eraser2k.exe - utility cannot be used with XP.
Please
advise.

Also I think that I have fixed Word 97. When I went into Startup folder in
Office, there were 2 .dot files - each was called WFWORD2K.dot but one
looked
like a temp file(i.e.it had~infront and was more transparent). I deleted
this last file and renamed the extention of the other from .dot to .old.
I
then clicked on a word doc and hey presto it opened up. Can I now install
2000?

 

[Roman]

I have windows XP(SP2) and Office 2000. I have read that this utility will
not work within Win XP. However, if you feel that I can use eraser2k.exe
with Win XP, should I run this first before installing Office 2000?

 

[Terry Farrell]

No, you are correct and I hadn't realised that eraser2k.exe won't run
correctly under Windows XP. In its early days it seems it did sort of work
but wasn't doing what it is supposed to do.

Terry

I have windows XP(SP2) and Office 2000. I have read that this utility
will
not work within Win XP. However, if you feel that I can use eraser2k.exe
with Win XP, should I run this first before installing Office 2000?