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jwmghfFlag for United States of America

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Microsoft Word Will only open in Safe Mode.

Hi guys:

I use Word a lot and would like to correct this error because it pops up everytime I open a Word document.  When I click on a Word document icon, the program goes through the errors listed below and opens in the Safe Mode.  The document I clicked on is ignored, so I have to go to File Open and find it to bring it in.  It's a pain in the neck.  Here is my overview.

I recently installed Windows XP Pro on my computer.  Every aspect of the OS is fine.  I then loaded up my MS Office 2002 or 2003.  All the programs other than Word are working fine.  Here's what Word is doing:

When I open it, it begins to open normally and then it says:

Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.  

The information you were working on might be lost.  Microsoft Word can try to recover it for you.

  ...   Recover my work and restart word.  ( The 3 dots represent a box you can put a check mark in.  It only allows me to leave a check mark in it to have Word then open in Safe Mode. )

If I remove the check mark I get the error:

Word failed to start correctly last time.  Starting Word in Safe Mode will help you correct or isolate a start up problem in order to successfully start the program.  Some fuctionality may be disabled in this mode.  Do you want to start in Safe Mode.  

                                                                Yes or No

If I say, "No" the first error I typed above comes up again.

I did try unistalling MS Office entirely and reloading it.  It still gives me the same errors.  
I noticed this problem after I did an import of my e-mail addresses and messages to Outlook from Outlook Express.  I don't think this had anything to do with the MS Word errors but thought it worth mentioning.

Thanks for your help,

John


 
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GrahamSkan
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Thanks GrahamSkan:

I took out normal.dot and the program started working perfectly.  I did notice, however, that Word did not make another normal.dot.  Is there a way to create it and place it into its folder???  It's not being in there does not seem to have effected the programs functionality at all, but I'm sure it's in there for a reason.

Thanks,

jwmghf
Sometimes people do have difficulty in finding Normal.dot and it's just conceivable that it isn't being saved after the Word session. You should find its folder in Tools/Options, File locations tab, User templates entry, though it'll probably be too long to display, so you will have to get the full path a bit at a time with the Modify... button and navigate upwards. Don't save, of course.
Alternatively you could do a file search.
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seadocs

Hi - I just started the free trial. The first answer above times out, so I guess the html has been removed:  http://www.officearticles.com/word/steps_to_troubleshooting_microsoft_word.htm

Deleting normal.dot is fine - the user needs to know that opening a Word doc ALWAYS creates a new normal.dot.  The file name is not too long to display - the file name is actually normal.dot, and it's stored with the other microsoft templates under .../microsoft/templates. Renaming normal.dot is no use at all, unless you modify it and want to keep it. If the doc is corrupted or has a setting that turns on safe mode, then the normal.dot that Word creates everytime you open a file will keep opening the file in Safe Mode.

The microsoft article did not help. Other responses have not helped that I saw earlier. I want to keep the Adobe Acrobat PDF option, and turn off Safe Mode. I have a call in to our support guy. Hope that helps, or will return to ask an expert.

Cheers,
seadocs
I have microsoft office 2003 (word) and Office XP pro (2003)  both items are opening and then immediately closing in 5-8 seconds..

I have un installed and re-installed both
I have delted the normal dot (tried renaming it first)
I have renamed the registry file also

No success

Thoughts
Have you removed all templates from the startup folder?  Sometimes it's an add-in that causes this.
Do you have Word set as your email editor in Outlook?  Go to Tools | Options | Mail Format tab.  Uncheck both boxes referring to using Word to edit and read email messages.  Close all office programs and reopen.  

When you delete your normal.dot and then Open Word, the new Normal.dot will be created but not visible until Word has been completely closed.  If Word is set as your email editor, then it will not completely close until you exit both Word AND Outlook.

Does this help?