Word 2003 Total failure

Ok, Word 2003 (SP3) on my computer (XP SP2) is having a serious problem
today. When I open a document, be it a saved document or a new blank page, I
get an unspecified error message saying just that Word has encountered an
error and needs to close. It gives the option to recover my document, but if
I do that it only produces the same error again. Here's what I've done so far
to fix it (and failed):

1Basic restart of the computer - no effect.
2Sent error report and followed the link to help there, which brought me to
Office Updater. I downloaded and installed the update (which was actually
only for Outlook) - no effect
3 Tried to repair Office through the add/remove programs menu. This started
looking and went non-responsive three times.

What is the actual problem here and what can I do to fix it?

garfield-n-odie
Thu Dec 06 13:39:29 PST 2007

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm .

collinxvii wrote:

> Ok, Word 2003 (SP3) on my computer (XP SP2) is having a serious problem
> today. When I open a document, be it a saved document or a new blank page, I
> get an unspecified error message saying just that Word has encountered an
> error and needs to close. It gives the option to recover my document, but if
> I do that it only produces the same error again. Here's what I've done so far
> to fix it (and failed):
>
> 1Basic restart of the computer - no effect.
> 2Sent error report and followed the link to help there, which brought me to
> Office Updater. I downloaded and installed the update (which was actually
> only for Outlook) - no effect
> 3 Tried to repair Office through the add/remove programs menu. This started
> looking and went non-responsive three times.
>
> What is the actual problem here and what can I do to fix it?