Why is New File grayed out in all my office applications?

[ihuggon]

Many key functions are have become unavailable in my Office 2003
applications. This is not resolved by complete uninstall and reinstall of a
different (Student edition) version of Office 2003.

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Probably because you have not activated your Word/Office
software, or because you have an expired trial version of Office
2003. What happens if you start Word and click on Help |
Activate Product? If you are already activated, a dialog box
saying so will appear. If you are not activated, the Activation
Wizard will start. If you have an expired trial version, a
dialog box will prompt you to enter a valid product key or
purchase a key online.

 

[ihuggon]

My problem is that the activation wizard does not start! The menu item
appears to be available but nothing at all happens when I click it. Any ideas?

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Are you using a trial version? If it's a full version, see
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823527 "Activation Wizard does
not start in Office 2003".

 

[ihuggon]

It is the full Teacher and student edition, straight out of the box, but I
did have a trial version installed previously. 823527 refers to deleting a
file Opa11.dat which I have done without success. It also suggests that
previous entries in the registry may be to blame, but It does not describe
which particular key(s) are relevant to the problem. Any more infor on this?
Thanks

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Did you uninstall the trial version before attempting to install
your full version? Were you signed on to Windows as
Administrator (or a user with administrator privileges), or as a
limited user? Did you get any error messages when installing the
full version? Was an older version of Office (such as Office XP,
Office 2000, Office 97, etc.) ever installed on the computer?

You should have gotten numerous reminders from Office 2003 to
activate the software before reduced functionality mode occurred,
and you apparently knew before posting your original question
that the activation wizard wouldn't start, but you conveniently
neglected to mention the latter... why, and what else didn't you
tell us? It's difficult to help when you don't give us all the
pertinent information about what you've done so far and what you
see on your screen.

 

[ihuggon]

The complete story!
March 2005 computer delivered with trial version 2003 loaded.
Trail version uninstalled and replaced with "Home use" copy of 2003. Ran
normally.
May 2005 hard drive replaced by manufacturer for disk failure, again with
trial version pre-installed (this may have been activated by the engineer,
but not by me). Uninstalled trial version and replaced with Home use copy.
After a few days lost functionality again. I presumed that this was because I
had reserected the Home use copy on an "old" computer pending repair of the
new one. Downloaded a trial version as a temporary measure but this worked
only for a few days before loosing functionality. In any case, since I had
decided to keep both computers running Office, I bought the teacher and
student edition, uninstalled the trial version and installed this new
version. As with each previous installation, I went to help and clicked
"activate" but there was no obvious acknowledgement that anything was
happening. Each installation was performed as Administrator. Since the hard
drive was replaced I have recieved no error messages or warnings or requests
for activation. This was why it was not obvious to me whether the functional
loss was because of failed activation or for some other reason (and that
there was no response to activation because it was already activated). It
seems that as well as the Activation Wizard not functioning, the warnings and
prompts about activation have also become disabled. Any suggestions?