Start a new document and crash




I am a current subscriber to PC World and hope you can help me with a problem. I am using Window 95 and MS Office Professional for Windows 95. When I go into Start a New Document in the Office shortcut bar or in Word I cannot open any Word templates.
Here's a sample of the varying messages I get:
Elegant Letter.dot -- MSOW caused an invalid page fault in module MSOW.EXE at 0137:50002f98
Contemporary Letter.dot -- MSOW etc...in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0137:bffb2d2d
Blank Document -- MSOW etc...in module KERNEL32.DLL at 0137:bff782ae
The only other Word templates apart from those supplied are HTML.DOT and ASAP.DOT. Other templates work OK, eg Access, Excel, Powerpoint.
My other query is how can I keep <NumLock> on each time I start up?
Thanks for one of the brightest points of my mailing month. God, what does that say about me?
- Vicki Cuskelly


Special offer pizza deals are the highlight of my mailing month. What does that say about me?
The problem you describe is a program error specific to Microsoft Office for Windows 95 Version 7.0. Version 7.0b and other versions of the Office suite are not affected. According to information from Microsoft, the fault occurs when you choose Open a Document or Start a New Document on the Office shortcut bar, and also when you click Open Office Document or New Office Document on the Start menu and then select a Word document.
It seems the trouble starts after you install programs which modify certain Word-related areas of the registry (Microsoft's own Macro Virus Protection tool is one of the culprits). There is a solution that goes some way to fixing the problem. If you are experiencing the kind of error messages Vicki describes, use Explorer's Find function to track down the file winword7.reg and then double-click it to reregister Word. Next, fire up Word and choose Open a Document or Start a New Document on the Office shortcut bar. Shut down Word and you should find that the Office shortcut bar has been restored to health. For more information about this bug, check out http://www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/q146/0/59.htm.
To fix your <NumLock> problem, delve into your CMOS settings next time you start your computer. Look for a section called BIOS Features Setup or similar. You should find a setting called Boot Up NumLock Status. Set this to on if you wish to keep <NumLock> on every time you start up.
- Neville Clarkson


Category: Word processing
Issue: Jul 1997
Pages: 165

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