Word opens without a document

This morning I installed a number of updates, mostly to Windows 7 and Office 2010. Perhaps it's just coincidence, but when I click on any of the documents (either Pinned or Recent) on the Taskbar jump list for Word 2003, a new instance of Word opens without any document, much less the one I clicked on. Luckily my Work menu is still working, but the two lists don't entirely overlap. When I click the X to close the empty Word window, I get the "Changes have been made to the Normal template..." prompt (entirely without cause). I decline to save it, and the Word window closes, leaving the original instance of Word still open. I've come to depend on the jump list, so this is very distressing.

 

The problem seems to be confined to Word: jump lists for Excel 2003, Publisher 2003, Word 2007, Word 2010, and IE 9 still work as expected.

Answer
Answer

Okay, I am answering my own question. When I finally thought about it rationally, I realized that all the symptoms pointed to Word needing to be reregistered. I was a bit leery since I have three versions installed, but with a combination of the information at http://www.gmayor.com/Document_Not_Found.htm and my previous investigation to locate the Office11\Winword.exe file, I was able to come up with the command string "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\WINWORD.EXE" /r, and that did the trick. Just like magic!

 

Unfortunately, in the process, I have severely mucked up my jump list by unpinning all the pinned files and trying to delete all the Recent files. For anyone who may be tempted to try this, I will just warn you that it is turtles all the way down!

 

Thanks, btw, and huge props to Graham Mayor, who has guided me through my multiple installations of Word (so that they don't step on each other's toes) and other similar problems.

Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
Screen shots captured with TechSmith's Snagit

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn't help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

 
 

Question Info


Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 696 Applies to: