Word 2007 Fails Despite Herculian Effort

[Parsimony]

Word 2007 fails immediately upon startup - "Word Failed to Start" followed by
"Microsoft Office Word has encountered a problem and needs to close...". The
error report includes the Exception Infomation: Code: 0xc0000005; the Flags,
Record & Address are all at 0x000000000.

I have carefully hand removed all of the temp files, tried all of the fixes
I could find, including removing the 'Data' and several other registry
entries, removed all of the template files, attempted to start in Safe Mode,
attempted to start from the command line with the /a switch, tried all the
suggestions in http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProblemsStartingWord.htm
completely uninstalled MSOffice (through Add/Remove Programs).

I suspect a corrupt DLL or something similar; something either shared or not
unique to Word.

Question - Would it help to manually uninstall, as described in several
Microsoft KB articles (after using Add/Remove Programs) in order to be sure
all is removed or should I start from scratch w/ a new OS install?

Note: Excel & Outlook work fine.

Ran the "Fixit" Utility, claimed it doesn't run on my version of Windows.

Machine is WinXP - patched current.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Parsimony

 

[Terry Farrell]

Corrupt, incompatible or missing printer driver?

 

[Parsimony]

That was it! How exactly did it come to that? I guess Word calls the driver
for the default printer as it loads but why no context error?

 

[Terry Farrell]

Because Word MUST have a printer driver to work. Word constantly
interrogates the driver so that it can work out how the page will be laid
out on the printed page. Every printer (and driver) gives slightly different
results. Even using the same printer with a different driver (for different
OS) will give different results.

I came to that conclusion because 99% of start failures are due to a corrupt
normal.dot(m) or a missing/corrupt printer driver. You had already
eliminated the normal.dot.

Terry

 

[Parsimony]

Been doing this for more than a dozen years and *never* knew that! And,
nothing I read in attempting to resolve the issue even suggested that
solution. Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Hopefully it wil
help someone else too; thanks again.

 

[Terry Farrell]

You're welcome.

Terry