How To: Fix problems with MS Word 2007 - Issue 1
I recently ran into trouble with Microsoft Word not working, below is an explanation of the problem and the solution I found. I hope this helps anyone with similar problems.
What I could and could not do:
- Could not open files from folders (got an empty Word screen with no document)
- Could open document from the file menu within Word
- Could not click in to text on the page
- Could navigate to text using arrow keys
- When closing word it would crash and say that ‘Microsoft Word has stopped working’
- Could save documents
I didn’t get to the bottom of why or how this happened as I was only really interested in getting Word to work again but from reading a number of forums it looks like a lot of people had to spend a long time on the phone with Microsoft to resolve the problem.
The fix requires some changes to the system registry which sounds scary, but having never done such a change before, and being no way technical I managed fine. This is as per Windows Vista, you may need to make some amends to the paths etc. for XP.
- Open the registry editor by going to Start- >All programs->Accessories->Run (alternatively type run in the Vista search box and hit enter)
- Type in ‘regedit‘ to the command prompt
- Follow this path by selecting the folders at the left of the screen: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office/12.0/Word
- By right clicking on the ‘Data’ and ‘Options‘ folders select ‘rename‘ and change them to ‘oldData‘ and ‘oldOptions‘.
- Exit the editor and restart word.
Apparently Word creates new folders and files to replace those which have been renamed and the new ones work.
Let me know if this works for you too.
Matt S
Filed under: How-to, Microsoft Office
