MS Word Multiple Problems

[Diane B]

Please, please someone help me!

On Tuesday, 11/13/07, I was deeply engrossed in a paper I was
editing—everything was going well and I was really appreciating Word
2007—when all of a sudden my system started shutting down. Long story short:
apparently MS Automatic Update decided to reboot my computer. If there was
any warning beforehand, I didn’t see it—like I said, I was deeply engrossed
in this paper I had been working on for two hours.
When my system came back up, the paper I was working on wouldn’t reopen, nor
would the automatically saved copy. I got “file corrupted-cannot open†error
messages on both until I gave up and deleted both of them thinking I would
get another copy from the email I had originally received it in and start
over. Didn’t work. When I attempted to open attached file (in email) Word
would open a blank page. Tried this several times with the same result.
Never was able to re-access that paper.
But then, things got worse:

1. I lost the ability to highlight text or to have any other interaction
within a document other than typing letters or deleting by backspacing. I
cannot move the cursor or really do anything else. The mouse has no effect
within a document, although it works normally within the ribbons and menus.
After running diagnostics and repair and multiple reboots, I am now able to
use these functions within a document in safe mode.

2. Whenever I attempt to exit from Word, in whichever method, I get the
message “Microsoft Office Word has stopped working, Microsoft is searching
for a solution to the problem†followed by “Microsoft Office Word is
restarting.†After it restarts and I try to re-exit it goes to “Microsoft
Office Word has stopped working, a problem caused the program to stop working
correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is
available†and it offers a “Close Program†button that works. Not a problem
in safe mode.

3. In the course of trying to troubleshoot problem number 2, I was directed
to go to Word Options, which I did and discovered that I could not access the
options with either my mouse or keyboard. I could not highlight to click on
them. In the safe mode, I was able to highlight some of them (Customize,
Add-ins and Resources) with the arrow keys, but not the rest.

I sure hope someone can help me. I have spent many hours trying to help
myself and have not been successful.

HP Pavilion dv9000t laptop
Intel Core 2 CPU 2.00 Ghz
RAM: 2046
32 bit
Windows Vista Home Premium
MS Office Home and Student 2007

 

[J.C. Johnson]

I am having this exact same issue. I left a Word document open on Tuesday
night when I left my desk. It was saved, no edits were waiting to be saved or
anything, but I left it open so I would know where I left off. This morning I
found the computer had rebooted after an automated update. When I tried to
open the document again, I had the same results. I can't open any document by
double-clicking. I can open Word, and then use the Open command to open a
file, but I can't highlight anything in it. I can create a new document, type
something, and save it, but once I've closed it it responds the same as all
other documents.

I did discover by chance that if I have the cursor at the beginning of the
document, where it is when I open the document (and I can't place the cursor
anywhere else, so that's my only option), I can type. Once I've typed, I can
arrow the cursor forward, but still can't use the mouse to interact with the
document at all. But even once I've done this, if I save the document, it
still won't re-open on its own, and I still can't interact with it in a
normal fashion.

Additionally, I'm getting the same errors in trying to shut down Word. I've
literally been through all the steps and errors described by Diane.


Dell Dimension E510
Intel dual core 3.20GHz
RAM 3070MB
32 bit
Windows Vista Business
MS Office Enterprise 2007

 

[Diane B]

Update:

Day 3:

I checked this site and another I posted on to see if anyone had an answer
for me. Nothing helpful. One person had a shared experience. Another
person made a suggestion (appreciated) that I had already tried.

Feeling somewhat despairing, I opened Word for the gazillionth time since
this all started and Lo…I felt like the shoemaker the morning after the elves
made all the shoes! The cursor worked, I was able to type a word and
highlight it, I went to Word Options and was able to access all the options,
I was able to open the corrupted and deleted paper I had been working on, on
Terrible Tuesday, which I hadn’t seen since my computer shut down under my
hands that day, (Of course, the paper was due on Tuesday so I don’t need
this copy anymore. Thanks, Microsoft.) and Word shuts down perfectly,
without a hitch. As a matter of fact, the program feels faster and more
solid than before The Great Terrible Tuesday Disaster.

My Reliability and Performance Monitor lists a huge number of downloads and
updates for both Tues. 11/13 and Wed. 11/14. It also notes that WINWORD.EXE
“stopped working†on both days.

I should also mention that during the course of all this, my sound button
developed a red X and told me that no sound device was attached. Apparently
a driver download failed. I had to go to the Device Manager and roll back
the driver. That didn’t affect the Word problems, though.

Thanks to anyone who read my previous post and considered my problem.

I really have no idea how the program repaired itself. I have turned off
Automatic Updates and set it so that it has to ask me before downloading or
installing updates. The program was still in the condition described in my
first post when I put the computer to sleep last night.

I can only say that I’m very grateful that I put off messing with the
registry until today.

And, J.C. Johnson, I hope your program is working now, too. It does sound
as though we had the same (horrible) experience.

Thanks, again all.

 

[TyKH]

I have problem 1 and 3. Can't select text anymore and the options are
disabled. We need this to be fixed!!!

 

[Terry Farrell]

What happens if you start in Safe Mode. From Start, Run (Winkey+R) type in

winword /a

and press enter. Word is now in Safe Mode. Are you able to type, select, etc
now?

 

[J.C. Johnson]

Terry,

Not sure if you were asking me or TyKH, but I'll throw in what I've found on
my end so far.

Yes, if I run Word in Safe Mode, it works as expected. This is something at
least.

BUT...somehow, I think I've resolved the issues on my end. I'm not even
entirely sure what has happened, or if it is a permanent resolution. So I'm
going to describe the steps I went through this morning.

I use MS Office Accounting Professional 2007. I realized while doing
bookwork this morning that I was going to have a problem. Sure enough, I
built a quote, and tried to Export to Word, and got an error. I failed to
make note of it, but Word wouldn't open. On a lark, and desperate to be able
to get an urgent quote to a client, I tried "Email Quote". This DID open up
the quote, in Word, through Outlook. I did not attempt to edit the document,
as I was in a hurry. Once I had the document opened up as an email in Word, I
saved it as a regular word document. The printed it to Adobe PDF (I don't
think this had anything to do with fixing anything, but it was one of the
steps I took). I closed the document.

I then did two invoices this way, opening as an email first, and saving as a
Word docx file. I did not even try to export these to Word, as I didn't
expect it to work. Then I came over here to check for any further information
on this issue. I opened Word in Safe Mode to verify that I could edit files
that way (just being thorough...I remember doing this before, and it worked
WHILE I was in Safe Mode, but didn't fix the overall problem).

So, I was going to describe here the information about being able to at
least get a document open in Word through Outlook, and went back through the
first steps in Accounting to get that error msg I'd failed to make note of.
Lo and behold, this time, it successfully exported an invoice to Word. I
checked, and yes, I can edit the file. I made sure I was all closed out of
any instances of Word open in Safe Mode. And then I tried opening one of the
documents I wasn't able to use two days ago. It opens. I can place the cursor
anywhere I want. I can edit it.

I have no idea what part of all of the above did the trick, or if some
update came along unnoticed that fixed it, but as of right now I'm back in
business, so to speak. With any luck, this will help someone else or lead to
a better solution than blindly stumbling through Office applications trying
things at random.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Opening in Safe Mode does actually do a little more than just bypass all the
changes and add-ins: it is possible that it 'fixed' the problem. One thing
to remember is that with Office 2007, the email editor in Outlook is NOT
Word. It may look just like Word but it is in fact a separate process from
its own .dll file. You an see this if you change some default in Word 2007
(say the default font) and then open Outlook, you will find that Word used
in Outlook has not changed.

Please come back if it starts going wrong again.

Terry

 

[J.C. Johnson]

Terry,

Just to clarify, opening in Safe Mode did not resolve the base problem, at
least not the first few times I tried it. Documents worked fine while in Safe
Mode, but once I switched back to regular Word, the documents still all had
the same sets of issues.

Additionally, I'd run the diagnostics tools back on Wednesday when this
first started occurring, which also didn't resolve anything. And ran a Repair
as well...same results.

Something happened today that fixed it. A document I tried opening earlier
today didn't work. Once I'd fiddled around in Accounting for a while,
suddenly things are working again, even out of Safe Mode. I'm not
complaining, mind you...just hoping that we can pinpoint what the solution is
(or the root problem is) so that other folks can also find a resolution. Not
everyone is running Accounting, I'm sure. ;-)

 

[TyKH]

Going into Safe Mode solves the problem.
So do I have to open Word in safe mode every time?

What is the cause of this problem?

 

[Diane B]

J.C.,

I tried twice, yesterday, to post an update on my situation. Both times it
wasn't printed.

I had the same miraculous healing that you did. Everything suddenly,
spontaneously started working. I don't think it had anything to do with
anything I did, including going in and out of safe mode. I think some fix
must have been downloaded.

My Reliability and Performance Monitor registered multiple downloads on
11/13 and 11/14 and noted that "WINWORD.EXE stopped working."

If someone at Microsoft knew this happened, you would think they'd have
posted some kind of "Don't Panic" notice. I came very close to messing with
my registry. Thank heavens, I didn't.

 

[Terry Farrell]

There were a load of Windows updates posted on Tuesday but I didn't see
anything that was obvious that fixed any of these type of problems: but who
knows as I had some really strange side affects of the updates (like the
default windows screensaver was turned on and the Updates Ready icon was not
displayed in the Notification area). Possibly something was updated that
wasn't listed.

Terry

 

[Pamelae]

I experienced virtually the same situation as Diane B posted on 11/14.
Following this thread I was able to open Word 2007 in safe mode and edit
documents with full mouse functionality. However, outside of safe mode I am
still unable to use the mouse in the body of text. Upon closing Word the
message still comes up that Word is not working properly,...searching for a
solution...word is restarting.....will notify you when a solution has been
found. Both Excel2007 and Powerpoint2007 work normally. What is the solution
to this problem with Word 2007?

 

[Diane B]

Hi Terry,

I checked my Reliability and Performance Monitor again (that lists my
updates and related info) and found that nothing was listed as in-coming on
the 15th which is the date of my spontaneous recovery. For some reason, that
program never shows same day information. Anyway, I have no clue what
happened. It was only my assumption that something else must have
downloaded, and as far as I can tell, I was wrong.

I had also suspected that part of the reason that things went so far south
was because the computer shut down when I had word open, but J.C. Johnson had
the same experience without having any programs open. (I think)

Anyway the whole experience has caused me to want to manually download and
monitor my updates in the future--probably one at a time.

Also, I wasn't clear--did your glitches reverse themselves on their own or
did you fix them yourself?

Diane

 

[Terry Farrell]

Try looking at the update log. From Start, Run (Winkey+R) and type in

windowsupdate.log

and press enter.

Terry

 

[Diane B]

Terry,

Wowee!! Thank you! HUGE amount of detailed info. I am so pleased to have
this resource. I plan to read it thoroughly through the time period of my
disaster and recovery. I may or may not find some kind of explanation, but
even if not, this will be really useful in the future. Again, thank you for
this resource!

I also learned that even though Vista no longer has the "Run" command, I was
able to access Run by typing Winkey+R. Boy, is that nice, also.

 

[Terry Farrell]

If you right-click the Taskbar and select Properties, then select the Start
Menu tab and click on Customise, about three quarters of the way down the
options items you will see the check boxes for both Run and Printers. Check
them to add the items back to the Start menu as in WinXP.

Terry

 

[TyKH]

Terry,

Opening in safe mode solves the problem but outside safe mode the same
problem occurs, so this is just a work-around.
Even after repair en reinstall the same problem occurs.

Have you been able to find out what causes this problem?

 

[Terry Farrell]

All starting in safe mote does is prove that it is something 'external to
Word that is wrong. This may be the a corrupt/incompatible printer driver,
an incompatible third party add-in or a corrupt data key in the registry.
Read all the other threads relating to similar problems and read the FAQ for
some further help: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

 

[Iain]

I have problem 1 and 3. Can't select text anymore and the options are
disabled. We need this to be fixed!!!

 

[Terry Farrell]

Delete the Word DataKey. Run Regedit and then navigate to the DataKey and
delete it.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\version number\Word\Data