Office 2003 Save As fault

Very strange behaviour in Office 2003. I'm unable to open an existing document and then select "Save As ", the system just hangs. I can Save As with a new document. I can open an existing one cut and paste the content to a new document and then Save As but not Save As on an existing one.

This applies to Word and Excel

I've run Office repair and reinstall, but still the same problem. Any clues would be gratefully received.

 

To try the easiest thing first, with Word closed search for and delete or move the normal.dot file. It's a hidden file so make sure in My Computer (or any folder)>Tools>Folder Options>View tab that "Show hidden files and folders is checked" and "Hide extensions for known files types" and "Hide protected operating system files" are unchecked.

The normal.dot file stores all your macros and toolbar customizations so if you have a lot of those, move the normal.dot file to another location. It's created the first time Word is opened (which is why repairing or reinstalling Office doesn't affect the normal.dot file) so when you open Word, it will create a new one. If that doesn't help and you want your macros and customizations back, close Word, delete the new normal.dot and move the old one back to its original location.

If that doesn't work, check out this Knowledge Base article.

If that doesn't apply (if you haven't install that particular update), it's possible your registry's data key has become corrupt.

The Data key stores a lot of your toolbar and macro settings. To fix this, you must close Word and edit the registry: Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\ Word. Inside the Word folder, you will see a folder called "Data." Delete this Data folder and relaunch Word. Just like with the global template, Word will look for this Data folder and recreate it fresh if it can't find it.