Word 2003 Hangs when I try to Open a Doc

[Guest]

Greetings,

For some reason, Word 2003 on my laptop (IBM A20p w/ WinXP) keeps hanging
whenever I try to open a particular document.

It hangs for about 5 minutes, and then a corrupt version of the document
opens up, that otherwise appears just fine on another machine running Word
2003. The problem occurred spontaneously, and no changes have been made to
the system since the problem occurred. I can start Word just fine with the
regular shortcut, as well as with Winword /a, but the the same thing happens
up when I try to open the document. I can create a new document, and then
save it, it hangs for a while, but the document does save. It seems to open
fine, too...

When I open the problematic file, after the 5 minute hang, I get a message,
"Saving the AutoRecovery file postponed for Normal.dot.". I click on the OK,
and then (i.e. a nice, 2 page CV which opens up fine on another system) opens
up into 7 pages, with all the tables, and text all over the place.

I have tried opening in safe mode, I get the same problem. I deleted the
DATA and OPTIONS keys just for kicks, and I got the same problem. I have no
special add-ins or templates of any kind, and the problem seems to be limited
to this particular document, and only on this particular machine. I have
tried opening the same document on two other machines, and it opens up
perfectly. Something must be messed up with the Word on the Laptop, but I
have no idea what it could be.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

 

[garfield-n-odie]

See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=830561 "Documents that have
attached templates take a long time to open in Word 2002 and in Word 2003".