What's up, DOC?

Double-click on a Word .doc file in Explorer and it will launch Microsoft Word and load the document. Except, of course, when it doesn’t. This month’s mail brought two versions of the problem.

In the first, Word 2003 would load, but the document would not – the application just presented an an empty screen, but opening the same document from the File menu worked normally.

The other occurrence was with Word 2007, which flashed up error messages reporting its inability to find various folders and files and ended up with an empty instance of Word. Again, File, Open worked normally.

This problem is usually caused either by a macro or an add-in, so here’s a brief checklist to try in both versions.

First, as this involves system changes, make a System Restore point. Next, tackle the macros – ­ Word 2003 version first. With the problem document loaded from File, Open, go to Tools, Macro, Macros, make sure ‘Macros in:’ is set to ‘All active templates and documents’ and look for a macro named Autoopen or Autoexec.

If found, select it and click the Edit button. Change the first line Sub Autoxxx to Sub OldAutoxxx

Close Word, agree to changes in the template, then try opening a .doc file from Explorer.
In Word 2007 turn to the View ribbon, click on Macros, then View Macros to do the same as above.

If this doesn’t solve the problem restart Word. In 2003, go to Tools, Templates and Add-ins and turn to the Templates tab. In the Global Templates and Add-ins section click on each item in turn, make a note of its location – ­ shown below the list – ­ and click Remove.

In 2007, this is trickier. Go to Word Options, and under ‘Popular’ make sure ‘Show Developer tab in the Ribbon’ is ticked. OK out of Options and turn to the Developer ribbon. Click on ‘Document Template’ and proceed as per Word 2003.

Close Word, OK changes to the template, and in Windows Explorer, go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11 (or Office 12 for 2007)\Startup. Move the contents of this folder to a temporary location.

Next you need to use two start-up switches that are not documented in the help file. Click the Windows Start button, then Run, then type ‘winword.exe /u’. If you get an error message try again using the full path.

Apart from some disk activity nothing will appear to happen and Word will not start. This removes the existing – and possibly erroneous – ­ Registry entries for Word. Repeat the exercise using the /r switch.