corrupt files?

[Gerry Wolf]

I'm not sure this is the right place for this question, but here goes. I am
running Windows XP Home with Office XP installed. My problem concerns Word
and it's inability to, stay responding and also to open and read .doc files.
I open files and get a box telling me to choose the encoding that allows me
to read the file. I have no idea what the hell causes this but it's terribly
frustrating. Any idea what's up? Are these unrecoverable files? Any idea why
it is always "not responding"? I've uninstalled and re-installed this many
times to no avail, do I need to install Office 2000 again?

Thanks......

Gerry Wolf

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Gerry

When Word opens a file that it recognizes as a Word document, it just opens
the file. If you try to open a file that Word does not recognize as one of
its own, it tries to cope. So Word can open a plain text file, a web page,
and files in various formats. It does its best to convert whatever it finds
to a Word document. At Tools > Options > General, if "Confirm conversion at
Open", then you will be asked to tell Word what kind of file you're opening.
If that box is not ticked, then Word will make a good guess at the kind of
file, and 99.9% of the time, it's correct. So, un-tick that box.

Uninstalling and re-installing almost never solves a problem with Word. This
is because the cause of the problem is likely to lie in a template, in
normal.dot or in the registry, and uninstalling and re-installing doesn't
over-write those. Try going through the steps shown at the following page:

Problems opening Word

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

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word