word, excel, PPT runtime errors

[Steve Raney]

I'm running Office XP Professional SPECIAL edition. (This edition is sooo
special that I can't even supply Office XP Professional edition compatible
PID to submit a support request).

On starting up, Word 2002 gives a runtime error: "this app has requested the
runtime to terminate in an unusual way."

On next start up, Word asks to run in Safe Mode, and starts successfully.

Powerpoint will not load successfully. "powerpoint found an error that it
can't correct."

Outlook runs fine (I changed so that Word isn't the editor)

Excel will not load successfully, not even in safe mode. "this app has
requested the runtime to terminate in an unusual way." It then asks if I
want to detect and repair. When I select this, detect and repair asks me
for my Visio CD.

Visio 2002 runs successfully.



I've been thru various docs like:

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

and the Office Discussion Groups posts on "runtime errors"

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...n-us&mid=14525e57-6de1-4c05-a885-f7acb295ae5a



I had been running Office 2000 developer edition before I upgraded to Office
XP. I am suspicious of this.

I did previously have Adobe Acrobat 5 (which is problematic), but I've since
upgraded to Acrobat 7.

I did previously have the NAV office plug-in running, but now I don't.

I have the U.S. patent services ABX plug-in installed (with ABX.dot). I'm
not very suspicious of this, because that would only cause problems in Word,
not in PPT or Excel. I renamed ABX.dot anyway.

Previous to installing Office XP, I deleted a number of applications on my
system to free up some disk space. I'm suspicious that this might have
mucked things up, but Office is not providing sufficient details in the
error messages.



In About MS Word, there are no disabled items.



As far as COM plug-ins running in Word
(http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm ) , I
cannot select Tools > Customize. Customize is grayed out.



As far as global COM plug-ins running
(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555220) , I cannot
see these. When I select About MS Word > System Info > Office Apps > MS
Word 2002 > COM add ins, I am told "MS World 2002 has not been started or is
not installed." This is not a correct statement.

 

[Steve Raney]

Looks like the problem was with my Acrobat 7.0 PDFMaker COM plug-in for
Office. I installed Acrobat 7 ontop of Office 2000 (and checked that I
wanted Adobe's special integration with Office). Then I upgraded Office to
Office XP Pro, which seems to have an interaction problem with the Acrobat
plug-in (might have to do with order of installation).

These two articles are "in the ballpark" on how to fix this:
a) http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823825 - this tip
on changing PPT registry keys is close.
b) http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/MissingMenusEtc.htm - this tip on
chaning Word registry keys is close.

But, the offending PPT registry key is really:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint
(not HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\PowerPoint)

The offending COM plug-in is found here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint\Addins\PDFMaker.OfficeAddin

The other offending office keys are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word

I request that MS and Adobe look into this further. I'd like to see some
knowlege base updates regarding finding offending COM plug-ins, especially
when running in safe mode. It seems to me that a whole number of
time-consuming fix ideas were suggested, but nothing quite worked. (One of
the PPT knowledge base articles roughly suggested that I update my NVidia
drivers, which I also did.) You end up going thru one of these detective
processes, and you feel like you should be charging MS/Adobe for QA/tech
support. On the Adobe side, the normal acrobat capability within Office is
fine. The plug-ins just took up toolbar real-estate. Soon after I installed
them, I wished I hadn't.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Adobe has problems getting its Add-Ins right for Word.
http://www.gmayor.com/lose_that_adobe_acrobat_toolbar.htm
(Version 7 is dealt with toward the end.)
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
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