opening M$WORD caused comp to re-boot...

Okay here is a problem I am having and am at wits end....

I have a W2K with the latest service pack, patches, security updates, etc installed and Office 2000 up to date too!!! A while ago I began having a problem. I would start the comp and it would load everthing and then boom, it would re-start itself. I looked for patterns and was not able to find any for this behavior. So I ran virus checks both in normal and safe mode and nothing and both with my Norton 2002 then 2003 and online vchecks at Symantec.

I did some research and found out that a faulty power supply could casue this and so I got a new turbo model, 2 fans and fan speed control and it didnt solve the problem. I ran numerous utilites on the HDD's and they came back okay, no problems...

So then it stopped and then all of a sudden last week it began and over the course of the last week I have been able to come to this point. Whenever I open M$WORD (Word 2000 in Office 2000) whether its the desktop icon, throught the start menu and program files, clicking a word .doc or even if i try and use word as my email editor in Outlook 2000 it continues to cause the comp to re-boot itself...

So this AM, I uninstalled and re-installed M$WORD and to no avail. This does not affect any of the other M$ products (excel, front page, IE, or outlook with word uninstalled or with word installed but not the email editor for outlook)...

I am beginning to look very seriously at the balcony and pitching this thing over the edge...

The M$ knowledge base is of no help and I really dont want to give M$245.00 for support...I am at a complete loss. I have my other comp and office 2000 installed (no problem on this one) but its such a pain, the other comp is my main comp and this 2nd comp is my lab comp. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

neomatsu

 

The most likely cause is a corrupted "normal.dot "....the template Word uses for a new, blank document.

Make sure Word is not running, then do a search for "normal.dot" and delete it. Some suggest renaming it to "normal.old" which also works but why leave it hanging around when deleting it works? Besides, if things go south after deleting it, you can always restore it from the Recycle Bin.

At any rate, when you re-open Word, it will rebuilt the file and things should work.

 

grumble grumble....

okay so i searched for normal.dot and when i found it i deleted it and re-booted the comp and then clicked on the word icon on the office tool bar and poof it re-booted the comp...so after it re-started i then did a search for normal.dot and low and behold i could not find it...

but then when i clicked on a .doc file it did the re-boot and the problem persits...i even killed the process for the office toolbar and tried opening a word .doc file and it opens the file and then after approximately 10 to 15 seconds, it does the re-boot....

any more suggestions would be appreciated...

neomatsu

 

Take a look at this MS KB article which gives instructions for opening Word using the /a switch...very helpful for troubleshooting problems.

 

MS Office has a repair feature. Put the original install CD, and it should give some options. One, being repair. If it doesnt work that way, just open any Office program, click on help, then detect and repair. You will need the original install disk, and sometimes it takes awhile.

 

okay i tried the suggestions...

i went to the M$ KB article and ran the /a switch and just after it opened the word .doc file it did the same thing, re-boot of the comp...and the M$ KB article did not mention anything about if the /a switch didnt work...it said if it worked then check 4 areas, which i might try anyways once this move is over...

i also tried the detect and repair utility that come with Office 2000 again and that did no good either...

i am almost at the point of backing up my files or doing a ghost of this HDD and then doing a reformat, but i was hoping not to have to go to that extreme, i have a lot of little programs that i have collected over time...

any more idea's guys and gals, they would be appreciated...

frustrated and moving in TX...hey at least it wont take me 1 hr and 15 minutes to get to work anymore, now it will only be 30 minutes and if i can get transfrered to the grapevine facility then only 5 to 10 minutes...looks up and leaves it in his hands...

neomatsu

 

If you're running XP, you can turn off the re-boot feature:

To change this setting, select Start > Control Panel > Settings > System (in the Classic-style Start menu, Control Panel is under Settings). Click Advanced > System And Recovery > Settings. In the System Failure section, clear the Automatically Restart check box, then click OK.

That should give you a BSOD instead of a reboot which will give you some information to work with to troubleshoot the problem.

You can also go into the recycle bin and restore the normal.dot files...if they're still there, that is.