Opening documents in Word 2007

What type of computer, and how big are your documents?

Does it happen with ALL Word documents or just some of them? If just some, does it always happen with the same ones or is it somewhat random? Is it only a certain filetype (like just .rtf or just .docx) or is it all filetypes opened by default with Word? When did this start happening? Did you just install Word 2007 (and was it an upgrade or a new installation) and has this happened since it was installed or was it working fine and then suddently you had this problem? Does it matter how you open the documents (by opening Word and clicking file / Open and selecting a file and clicking OK versus double-clicking on a .doc file on your desktop or in your documents folder versus double clicking the document shortcut in Recent Files in the Start Menu)? Do you get any error messages of any kind or does it just freeze (if you get error messages, what do they say exactly word-for-word) and if it freezes how do you get out of the situation - does it eventually start working again or are you able to close it with the red x or do you use Task Manager to End Task on the program or do you reboot? You say it works fine otherwise - how do you know that if you can't open documents - do you mean you can create and save new documents just fine but just can't access them again once you close them?

Please click on Start / Computer / System Properties and tell us what it says about the Version of Vista you are using (it should give the version name - like Home Basic or Business, the bit size - 32-bit or 64-bit, and the service pack number - like Service Pack or SP2). Knowing the OS will help us.

I realize this is a lot of questions but you haven't given us much to go on to pinpoint the problem or even come up with a suggested course of action. We need more information, so PLEASE answer ALL the questions we have asked (I know it may take some time, but without this we are groping in the dark). To give you the best help we can, we need your help and providing the requested details and explanations is how you can help us at this point. Later, we may ask you to run some tests or do some procedures, but for now what we need is information. And feel free to add anything else you feel might help that we haven't asked but you think might be pertinent - that extra bit of data may turn out to be the key to solving the problem.

Thanks and good luck!

Patonb:
I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop. And the documents that I am trying to open are somewhere between 11 and 16 KB.

Lorien:
This happens with ALL of my documents! I noticed that it was happening about a month ago when I started school and had the need to type up my papers. I have had Word installed since I got the laptop which was a couple of years ago. To close out of Word, I am able to click on the red "x". I am able to create and save new documents but cannot access them again. I get no error messages and I have tried numerous ways of opening documents (double clicking, right clicking, open with..., shortcuts, etc.) and none of them work. Here is my computer info:
Windows Vista Home Basic
32-bit OS
I did not see a service pack number.

Thanks for all of your help!

Ugh... I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen reviews that you only have 512Megs of RAM.

Take a screenshot of the systems page like mine:


It'll help if you aren't able to find the info.

If you see no service pack, it means you haven't even installed SP1 let alone SP2. That probably means you aren't installing updates - probably neither for Vista or Office/Word - which could be the cause of your problem (or if done, may resolve the problem). Even if this doesn't work, it's something that should be done for a variety of reasons. The following will assist you in getting started: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Install-Windows-updates.

I recommend you install all available updates (except device drivers) until no more remain. Then install SP1 if it didn't come up automatically: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-5EBB-413B-89C9-CB3D06D12674&displaylang=en. Then install all available updates (except device drivers) until no more remain. Then install SP2 if it didn't come up automatically: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...d5-f907-4406-9012-a5c3199ea2b3&displaylang=en. Then install all available updates (except device drivers) until no more remain. Then reboot and you will be up to date.

Then try Word and see if that made any difference.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

^I was hopen not to type all that.... But glad you did.

I tried the download on the second link but it won't download all the way. It will start downloading for about 30 minutes and then stop and say "download cannot be completed". The first link did not work at all.

I changed the first link in the original post - sorry, it must have gotten messed up when I copied it. The article itself is brief and contains just some of the basics, but to the right are links to other related articles which in turn contain links to other related articles. If you go through them, you'll learn what you need to know about doing updates. Here's the link I meant to add instead (which is a better site and provides more information and presents it easier without needing to jump from site-to-site) and I hope it works - I'll check it after I post to make sure it works for me (I just came from the site so I know it exists and works): http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/windowsupdate/learn/default.mspx. I just checked, and this one seems to work. You may want to go back to the What is Windows Update section to start at the beginning (the link to that page won't work which is what I originally posted and tried here but needed to change it to this one to get it to work) or you can just dive right in by clicking on the link for Vista a little down on the page.

It is possible that you cannot download or install SP1 because the updates that were released prior to that have not yet been installed. Note that before you try to install SP1 you need to run Windows Update (perhaps several times until no new updates are provided) to catch up. There's even a good chance that if you do it this way, SP1 may appear as an available update and you won't need to do a separate download (which would be best, but I provided the link in case that did not occur - it appeared for me when I first installed my system and I did not need to download it separately (though I did for SP2)).

You say it is stalling during the download? So it just stops downloading or does it give you an error or what happens? It doesn't say anything more than "download cannot be completed"? It is a large download (480-something MB vs 65MB if done through Windows Update) so that might be part of the issue depending on your connection and download speed (still, I've downloaded files of 4-5GB without problems), so unless you have a space issue, this shouldn't be a problem and it is not likely to have to do with what's installed on your system if it's the download and not the installation that isn't working as it's just a download at this point. We'll come back to this if necessary.

The first thing to do is learn about the Windows Update process and then go to Start / Control Panel / Windows Update and set it up and do your first check for updates and then download and install them. If you do the Windows Update process (as explained above - again, you may need to do it several times and reboot after each time before everything installs as some earlier ones are needed before later ones can be installed so it provides them in sequence and sometimes it can take 2 or 3 or even 4 times before it gets everything) and it doesn't eventually include SP1 and you then still can't download this file manually after completing that, post back and I'll see if there's another way to get the update or try to figure out more specifically why you're having the problem. But I think using Windows Update first as described above will resolve this and perhaps even eliminate the need to do the separate download.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!