[ms office - 2003] Word crashing

[djones]

I have a problem which appears to be spreading! When opening .doc files, Word is crashing either immediately or when trying to open the print dialogue. More and more users are starting to report this issue - at first it appeared intermitently with just a few files and now appears more and more with most or all files some users try to open. Users is probably not accurate as it doesn't matter what computer they log on to and try.

 

If I log on as the local admin on affected computers, the files open fine. If I open the files from my Win7 laptop using Office 2007, the files open fine. If I rename and save them again, the original user can open them fine again.

 

I am at a loss as to what to try next - any help would be much appreciated.

 

Dave.

[elsiegee40]

What OS are your users using? XP? Vista? Win7?

And what version of Word?

 

Do your users have mandatory or roaming profiles?

 

Sorry to start with questions, but a bit more detail would be useful.

[glennda]

do start run winword /a then try and open the files. this opens word without any add ons if it still fails to open something weird going on if it does open then its a add on it word causing a conflict with something in the file

[djones]

What OS are your users using? XP? Vista? Win7?

And what version of Word?

 

Do your users have mandatory or roaming profiles?

 

Sorry to start with questions, but a bit more detail would be useful.

 

Indeed, sorry - was thinking aloud! All computers use a single standard WinXP SP3 image with Office 2003 SP3. Roaming profiles for staff at the moment (although going to remove them and simply use local ones - redirected folders in use).

 

We are running out of space on the server at the moment and there have been a few occasions when that has gone completely! I have a suspicion that a user's profile/normal.doc file has become corrupt (possibly due to an occasion when the profile/normal.doc couldn't be written back successfully?).

 

Could this have been transfered by others opening a file that was created with the aid of a dodgy normal.doc? It seems strange that this has started recently and seems to be spreading.

Edited March 4, 2010 by djones
Spelling!

[FN-GM]

Are you having any issues with general network speed? I have found office bombs out if the connection is to slow.

 

Are you fully patched up with Microsoft updates?

 

Anything in the event log?

[djones]

Are you having any issues with general network speed? I have found office bombs out if the connection is to slow.

 

Are you fully patched up with Microsoft updates?

 

Anything in the event log?

 

Network speed has dropped recently - not sure of the cause yet - but not drastically. One reason for moving away from roaming profiles. WSUS used to manage updates so yes, we are up-to-date - I did wonder whether a recent update has screwed anything but I haven't seen anyone else complaining about anything similar/related. Nothing obvious in the event logs.

[FN-GM]

Do you have any addons that go into office. One example is Adobe Acrobat Pro has an addon into word to make PDF files.

[djones]

Do you have any addons that go into office. One example is Adobe Acrobat Pro has an addon into word to make PDF files.

 

No and have tried opening Word in safe mode (@glennda: I presume safe mode does the same thing as winword /a) but still crashes which is why I am leaning to a corrupt Normal.dot. I am going to try deleting 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11\Word\Data' and all tmp files to see if that clears the issue. I am just slightly concerned that renaming the affected files using Office 2007 solves it - there could be a lot of corrupt files!! I don't understand!

[stjtech]

Are the roaming user profiles remaining locked until you restart the computer ?

 

Had a similar problem a few years ago where the ATI Catalyst process would not release the ntuser.dat file and therefore locked the local cached copy and sent a currupt version back to the server when a user logged out. We ended up using a lower version of the ATI graphics driver that did not use the catalyst centre.

[djones]

Are the roaming user profiles remaining locked until you restart the computer ?

 

Had a similar problem a few years ago where the ATI Catalyst process would not release the ntuser.dat file and therefore locked the local cached copy and sent a currupt version back to the server when a user logged out. We ended up using a lower version of the ATI graphics driver that did not use the catalyst centre.

 

Yes (in that they cannot be deleted until rebooted) but I've always experienced that so have always assumed it was normal! In any case, I'm not sure I would know how to go about narrowing down the culprit.

[Cache]

Could be unrelated because it seems to be a user problem, but with you mentioning the print dialogue will throw it out there.

 

I've had a similar problem on a couple of computers which was linked to the HP Universal Print Driver. Removing the Universal Print Driver and putting on the printer specific driver solved the problem.

 

How up to date are your printer drivers?

[djones]

Could be unrelated because it seems to be a user problem, but with you mentioning the print dialogue will throw it out there.

 

I've had a similar problem on a couple of computers which was linked to the HP Universal Print Driver. Removing the Universal Print Driver and putting on the printer specific driver solved the problem.

 

How up to date are your printer drivers?

 

Probably not very - will check.

[djones]

Ok, printers seems to be the definite culprit - not sure why yet. Had a quick fiddle today, updated OKI drivers on server and seems to have done the trick (fingers crossed) on the one laptop/user I have tried - famous last words. Will find out if it has stayed working tomorrow!

[djones]

Regedit didn't work so I went for the printers. Reinstalled/updated drivers on the server, removed and reinstalled printers on user's laptop. User logs in again and loads printers successfully. Unfortunately, although this has worked on this one laptop/user, it hasn't worked on some others and I can't work out why.

 

I also rebooted the server today and noticed a 'Spooler SubSystem App' error so I've followed You cannot add a printer and you receive printer spooler error messages in Windows XP and wiped out all printers. I recreated just one of the printers (our photocopier) using updated drivers and repeated the steps in KB 324757 on another laptop. This appears to have worked but I can't explain why.

 

Can anyone shed any light on possible causes/explanations? The server did run out (completely) of space - could that have messed anything up?

 

Dave.

[djones]

Recreated all printers and all seems well again. I did notice that the drivers for our B/W copier previously installed were PCL6 and after having read loads of issues with these I opted for the PS drivers instead this time.

 

Fingers will remain crossed! Thanks for the help. Next....!