Word won't open

I have been using Office 2000 for about 3 years now on the same computer.
Now I find that I cannot access Word. Excel is still working. I have
many important documents in Word.

Recently I have loaded some new software. I have tried "recover". I
have tried to reinstall. When I am reinstalling Office I get this message....

"Unable to access configeration for Microsoft Personal Web Server"


If this is my problem, how do I fix it?

It sounds like files in MS word are curpt.

I am betting the actual word documents are still ok.

Try googling the problem and read what comes up.

It could also be your hard drive getting bad sectors,. how old is your computer or hard drive?

computer is between 3 and 4 years old. BTW thanks for answering.

reply to post by Mahree


Try taking the side off the computer case and see if you hear gravely noise from the hard drive.

Do you have a thumb-drive or a cd/dvd burner, just copy the word documents from your hard drive to another computer.

The quick and dirty method is as follows:
Do a search and put in( *.doc), without the ().

This tells it to find all the word documents on your hard drive(s), Partion(s).

You can now do a drag and drop or put them in a folder and burn a cd/dvd.

I realize this does not fix your word issues, but it does save and protect your word documents.

When you have done this, we can work on the program itself.

Let me know how it goes.





[edit on 10/22/2009 by mrmonsoon]

I have to get another thumb drive to transfer my files. Don't get to fancy on me. My knowledge of computers is limited. :shk:

You can try the Word Viewer to see if you can still open the documents (I think you should be able to do it).

If Word Viewer works then it's obviously a problem with Word itself.

PS: with Word Viewer you can see and print Word documents, but you cannot save changes.

Another thing, try to run Word with the /a option.

You didn't mentioned it, but I suppose you are using Windows. If you are, press the Windows key (the one with Windows logo), if it exists. I am not sure of other options to run commands and I don't have the time right now to look for them, but the idea is to execute the following command, either on a DOS prompt or in the Run or Execute box.

Winword.exe /a

If Word opens then it's not Word itself that is corrupt, it may be the Normal.dot template, some registry key related to Word or something else also related to Word, directly or indirectly, that Word is trying to access at start-up.

reply to post by ArMaP


Thank you... I was able to open my word documents with the word viewer. This does relieve me, and removes the stress.

I have to go to work now, but will try your other suggestions later.

Since I have been a member of ATS I have come to computer help when needed and all of you other members have not failed me.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Another thing, try to run Word with the /a option.


Winword.exe /a

Word opened up and I could access my documents.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Another thing, try to run Word with the /a option.


If Word opens then it's not Word itself that is corrupt, it may be the Normal.dot template, some registry key related to Word or something else also related to Word, directly or indirectly, that Word is trying to access at start-up.

Word does open up with the /a option. Any ideas about how I can fix word so that it opens as it should in Office?

reply to post by Mahree


You need to delete the Normal.dot file.

Open Word with the /a option and then go to "Tolls/Options" menu. Once there you should see a window with several tabs, one of which says something like "file location" (I have the Portuguese version, so I cannot be sure of the words for other versions). One of the locations listed should be something like "User templates", and it will show the location for Normal.dot.

Using the explorer, go to that location and delete Normal.dot, it will be recreated the next time you open Word. If you don't see it it may be because it is marked as a system file and you have to change the options in Explorer to show system and hidden files.

I hope that helps.

reply to post by ArMaP


I was able to delete Normal.dot

But, that still did not solve my problem. It could be that I made other mistakes along the way. :shk: because I don't know any better.

I have continued to use WORD with the a option. When I "save" it I get the message to get IE 5 from the Office 2000 disk. I did recently update to IE 8, and perhaps my problems with WORD did start about that time.

Anyhow, thank you for your help because I can do what I need using the a option.

Mahree