When reinstalling Microsoft Word

[Guest]

My computer crashed and I no longer have any of the Microsoft procucts,
including Word and Excel. I do volunteer research when I am not working, and
I have countless Word and Excel documents on my computer. Since my computer
recently crashed, I am afraid that I will lose these valuable documents when
I reinstall Word, Excel, and the other Microsoft products. Basically, will I
lose older Word files when I reinstall Microsoft Word? I really hope not,
else hours upon hours of work is lost forever. Please help!

 

[Guest]

As long as you don't save your data files to the same folders where your Word
and Excel program files are installed, then reinstalling Office shouldn't
affect your data files. But if you have to reformat the drive, then you will
lose everything on the drive.

 

[Jezebel]

Make a complete backup of your files before you do anything else (you should
have done this anyway!).

But be comfortable: installing software doesn't zap your files.

 

[Graham Mayor]

More information of the nature of the crash might have helped. You may get
away with running chdsk and repairing Office.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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[Guest]

Thank you so much for the initial help. So a reinstall won't overwrite my
documents. Obviously I am not a computer wiz, so how do i create an
effective backup? I can no longer acces Word and Excel, so I can't save all
the existing files to a disk (luckily I have some info saved on disks). I
also recieved some advice that says I won't overwrite the existing files as
long as I don't reformat the drive. How do I avoid this? Sorry in advance
for some of the dumb or obvious questions I am asking. Thanks again!

 

[Jezebel]

Thank you so much for the initial help. So a reinstall won't overwrite my
documents. Obviously I am not a computer wiz, so how do i create an
effective backup? I can no longer acces Word and Excel, so I can't save all
the existing files to a disk (luckily I have some info saved on disks).

You don't use Word or Excel for creating backups anyway. Use Windows
Explorer (to drag the files to a floppy) or your CD burner.

I

also recieved some advice that says I won't overwrite the existing files as
long as I don't reformat the drive. How do I avoid this?

Don't reformat your drive. Shouldn't be necessary.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the prompt help. I sort of understand what you are saying, but I
am asking for clarification for the sake of making sure I do things right and
avoid the risk of losing these documents. Am I understanding you right that
as long as I do not save the reinstalled versions of Word and Excel in the
same folder as my preexisting files, I will not lose them? And can you be a
little more specific of the reformatting of the drive and how to avoid this?
Thanks for the help and sorry for the obvious questions. I am definetly not
a PC wizard.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You should be able to find them (probably in My Documents) using Windows
Explorer.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are you sure you don't still have Word and Excel? It would be very unlikely
for them to have been uninstalled by a computer crash, though it's possible
that the shortcuts you use to start them are missing. Try using Windows
Search to search for winword.exe. If you find it, then Word is still
installed. Create a shortcut to that file, and you'll be back in business.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

My computer is really messed up. To start off, my Internet stopped working
so I put the IP adress in and it reconnected. The bad thing is when I
reconnected my Internet for some reson Word and Excel were uninstalled. When
I go to the start menu and try to start Word it says that "this action is not
valid for programs that have been uninstalled." When I just try to
cdouble-click on the Word or Excel document that I want to use, the same
error message appears. I am totally lost and confused.

 

[Jezebel]

Re-installing sounds like a wise remedy: it actually sounds like a registry
problem -- reinstalling should fix it. But before you go much further, do
just a little bit of reading so you understand how you computer's file
system works. Spend some time with Windows Explorer and get familiar with
the layout of your hard disk. Your software ends up somewhere under
c:\program files; your documents will be somewhere under My Documents.

Installing software has *nothing* to do with the storage of your documents
and spreadsheets.

 

[Guest]

I recently lost my MS Office software when I used my 'system recovery' cd
that came with my computer (Windows ME).
I found the winword.exe file but this did not fix the problem.