Spelling Checker won't find misspelled words

My Spelling Checker will not find misspelled words. It will find grammatical errors, but not misspelled words. I have deleted and reinstalled Word 97. I have checked and unchecked all of the option boxes indicating which items to check for, and nothing helps. The program finishes checking my document, and everything is checked properly except for misspelled words. When the spell checker is first opened, I get this message:
"Word cannot open the spelling file C:\program file\common files\Microsoft shared\proff\MSSP2_EN.LEX for English (United States) "

I have tried to use other dictionaries, such as the one for English in Great Britain, but it does not work either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.