Word not working or responding?

oopsbuddy

Firstly, I am not that technically minded, so please go easy on me! I have MSOffice 2003, but Word has recently developed a problem in that a blank document page will open, but no toolbars etc, and will not run. The "Not responding" window then appears. Any thoughts on how to fix it? I tried repairing/reinstalling the Office disk, but no change. Excel is working fine. Many thanks

Kevster

oopsbuddy wrote: »

Firstly, I am not that technically minded, so please go easy on me! I have MSOffice 2003, but Word has recently developed a problem in that a blank document page will open, but no toolbars etc, and will not run. The "Not responding" window then appears. Any thoughts on how to fix it? I tried repairing/reinstalling the Office disk, but no change. Excel is working fine. Many thanks

I haven't encountered anything like what you're describing before. I suppose you could try to remove Word from the Office installation and then reinstall it. The 'repair' option never worked for me previously when I encountered other problems.

Kevin

Standard Toaster

Could be a printer issue (yeap, printer)
Try changing your default printer and opening Word again.

Failing that search for Normal.dot and rename it. Re-open Word again.

Also, try Start/Run and type Winword.exe /a

See what works for you there.

cable842

download Open office the program. and all your problems are solved.

Open Office is the same as Microsoft word except its Free

http://www.openoffice.org/

Khannie

cable842 wrote: »

download Open office the program. and all your problems are solved.

Open Office is the same as Microsoft word except its Free

http://www.openoffice.org/

It's nice that you like openoffice but the OP is looking for help fixing word.

Alun

I'd go for a corrupt normal.dot as the first thing to look for too, assuming Word works fine when opening an existing document by double-clicking on that document (you don't mention if you've tried that and if it works).

Capt'n Midnight

cable842 wrote: »

download Open office the program. and all your problems are solved.

Open Office is the same as Microsoft word except its Free

http://www.openoffice.org/

READ THE CHARTER
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=47980

No Off-Topic Advocacy: When someone asks a question in relation to their current OS/browser/mailer/etc, either answer the question or don't post. If they want an alternative, they'll ask for it. Off-topic advocacy will be sent to the Recycle Bin and repeat offenders may be banned.

Capt'n Midnight

Kevster wrote: »

I haven't encountered anything like what you're describing before. I suppose you could try to remove Word from the Office installation and then reinstall it. The 'repair' option never worked for me previously when I encountered other problems.

yeah one of the problems is that a repair inherits the current settings and so won't solve problems that are caused buy the settings,

even doing an Add/Remove may not remove all the settings

you can remove these manually but is messy



Try The_Edge's tips first, if still no joy then I'll have a look for the complete removal tools, but you would need to reinstall office again.

oopsbuddy

Alun wrote: »

I'd go for a corrupt normal.dot as the first thing to look for too, assuming Word works fine when opening an existing document by double-clicking on that document (you don't mention if you've tried that and if it works).

Hi all, and thanks for the interest and your replies. I did try opening an existing document but that does not change the result either, ie, still a blank document, with a blue bar across the top, but nothing else. I have my suspicions (would it be possible?) that a ten year old user of Word may have saved a different template without realising it, and left us with this problem?

If I try to uninstall Word, will I have to uninstall the whole MS Office 2003, or can I just take out Word? Will any saved documents be affected?

Many thanks

Tea_Bag

oopsbuddy wrote: »

Hi all, and thanks for the interest and your replies. I did try opening an existing document but that does not change the result either, ie, still a blank document, with a blue bar across the top, but nothing else. I have my suspicions (would it be possible?) that a ten year old user of Word may have saved a different template without realising it, and left us with this problem?

If I try to uninstall Word, will I have to uninstall the whole MS Office 2003, or can I just take out Word? Will any saved documents be affected?

Many thanks

No saved doc's will be affected. you can also remove it without removing all of office03, just follow the uninstall instructions for office, and "untick" word, but nothing else, when you get the option.

before resorting to that, i'd see if there are any updates available that you can DL from windows update. (if using XP, go to start, all programs, 4th from the top should be "microsoft update") DL and install any office updates.

Standard Toaster

oopsbuddy wrote: »

Hi all, and thanks for the interest and your replies. I did try opening an existing document but that does not change the result either, ie, still a blank document, with a blue bar across the top, but nothing else. I have my suspicions (would it be possible?) that a ten year old user of Word may have saved a different template without realising it, and left us with this problem?

If I try to uninstall Word, will I have to uninstall the whole MS Office 2003, or can I just take out Word? Will any saved documents be affected?

Many thanks

Re-installing Office is unlikely to fix this. All your office settings and templates will remain in your profile.
Can you do a search for Normal.dot and rename it? That's the default template that gets loaded....Word will re-create a new one if there is none found (eg you just renamed it)

It's a hidden file do when doing your search enable 'show hidden files'.

Under XP it's found at:
C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

Landyaddict

OP, One thing you forgot to mention is what Version of Microsoft windows you have and what service pack is installed.
I have experienced issue's like this after an upgrade to a later version of windows.
Looking briefly at the support site for Office and searching your " not responding" error throws up several replies but in each case the version of OS been used is important to finding the correct solution.
Can you post this information?
uninstalling,reinstalling will not work ( as already mentioned) as the underlying problem my still be present as part of the operating system.
If you are in a hurry to use a version of a word processor, then using a free license version (also mentioned earlier) might get you out of a spot.

Landy

*I fear getting a warning so I have not mentioned any other application to stay within the rules.*

Capt'n Midnight

Landyaddict wrote: »

*I fear getting a warning so I have not mentioned any other application to stay within the rules.*

There is no problem with suggesting alternative programs for comparison or as possible workarounds
or even as a replacement where you have explained the specific reason why it would perform better in relation to the original problem

just don't blindly suggest an alternative will solve all problems, ( unless of course it really does )
eg:
the cost of openoffice is a non-issue if you already have a microsoft license, since you won't save any money

openoffice won't solve all problems

and no it isn't the same as word,
for casual users yes there is a huge overlap but both have features the other doesn't

and no it doesn't make coffee or cure cancer or impress the chicks like an electric skateboard does



But as you have pointed out , openoffice is handy if you need to work on a document until word is sorted, note it can upset formatting with tables / spacing on centred text, but you can have similar issues with very old versions of word and I've found adding spaces at the end of the paragraph is one way to force it to behave.

Where openoffice does score highly is that dictionaries in other languages are free and it's more resistant to older word security vulnerabilities and in the past it was better at opening borked documents, but these don't really apply in this case

oh yeah, abiword is another free word processor that can also be used for comparison



http://officeupdate.microsoft.com if you want to patch office up to date
as long as you arent' running office 2000 on vista (can't remember which combination didn't work so well on the updates )