Word 2007 mystery crash resolved

Last week, I was baffled when Word 2007 began crashing each time I closed the program. This was happening on a secondary system running Windows Vista Business, so I made a mental note to look into it more closely when I had a chance.

Today, I ran across a new Knowledge Base article, 940791, which described a set of symptoms that were a perfect match for mine:

You install an automatic update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 on a Windows Vista-based computer. Additionally, the computer must be restarted after the automatic update is installed. However, if Word 2007 is running when you restart the computer, you may experience the following symptoms:

The mouse does not work when you use Word 2007.

You cannot open a Word document from the Search window in Windows Vista.

You cannot open a Word document from Windows Desktop Search.

Word crashes when you try to start or to exit Word.

The article doesn’t say which update is to blame, but my money is on either 939159 or 933360, both of which were released on August 29 and rated Important. A quick look at the Windows Update history pane shows that those two updates were applied to my system on August 29, and Event Viewer’s Microsoft Office Sessions log confirms that was the date the Word crashes began. Word 2007 had indeed been running last week when those updates were applied. I remember because I noted that the unsaved document I had been working on had been automatically saved and was automatically reopened after the system restarted.

The fix is fairly simple, As explained in the original article, just delete the following Registry subkey:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data

Mystery solved.

70 Thoughts on “Word 2007 mystery crash resolved”

Claude on September 3, 2007 at 1:51 pm said:

Hi Ed

Thank you for your most informative posts.

You’re an expert. You can deal with those things. Me, I am a simple Joe and work from home without any IT support. Last Sunday I was working on a file when my screen got all blue and I got STOP/A(0000×23409 IRQL-Not_Less or_ equal!

Ed, what do you want me to do with that? Microsoft is not reasonable with things like that! Are they serious? Is their system aimed only at techies? I am now looking for alternatives.

Thanks, Ed
Pingback: University Update - Windows Vista - Word 2007 mystery crash resolved
Serdar on September 4, 2007 at 8:12 am said:

Claude, that sounds like a driver issue — that particular error message is almost always due to a low-level driver like video.
Freud on September 4, 2007 at 9:52 pm said:

Claude,

The following thread deals with a different version of Windows (2000 Server) but the information posted halfway down contains information from MS in troubleshooting similar problems using “sigverif”. It may resolve your issue too.

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/4915/
Paul on September 4, 2007 at 11:03 pm said:

Thanks for this tip. I think it may have been an Office update that caused the issue though when I installed MathType, I started getting the problems as well. I uninstalled MathType but it would still crash. Deleting that registry key fixes the issue so thanks again.
david soskice on September 5, 2007 at 4:18 am said:

dear ed

I can only reiterate Paul’s comment! many many thanks, the Word 2007 crash problem started for me at the same time, after I had downloaded the updates, and persisted even when I uninstalled MathType;

i followed your instructions and it is now working fine again

david
Chris on September 6, 2007 at 8:24 pm said:

I have had the exact problems you describe — constant crashing, mouse not working, etc. Googled all the symptoms and found your article.

Is it possible that you could describe how to delete the registry subkey so that a less high-tech person such as myself could find it?

thanks!!
Chris Buechler on September 7, 2007 at 6:51 pm said:

Thanks for posting this! I have had the problem with Word crashing on exit, and also it stopped opening files double clicked on in Explorer, and attempts to open downloaded doc files from Firefox as well. Hadn’t had a chance to look at a fix yet. This fixed it.

For you less technical folks, click Start, type in regedit and hit Enter. Click Continue on the User Account Control box (you need to be an administrator to dot his). Be *VERY* careful what you’re doing, one wrong move and you could destroy your Windows install. Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER, browse to Software, Microsoft, Office, 12.0, Word. There you will see the Data key (which looks like a folder in Windows Explorer). Highlight the Data “folder”, and hit the Delete key. Close Registry Editor, and you should be set! Worked great for me.

Thanks Ed!
Alex on September 10, 2007 at 3:00 pm said:

Unfortunately, no joy for me!

Still crashes every time I close it. And it’s not limited only to Word, but also Powerpoint 2007.
Alex on September 10, 2007 at 3:02 pm said:

Sorry about that, it seems to have done the job after all. Thanks!!!
Silvio on September 10, 2007 at 8:46 pm said:

Even stranger : I use Word 2007, am able to use the mouse either in the doc itself or the Word options button for example; I switch to another program like Windows Media Player for example, switch back to Word 2007 and my mouse doesn’t work anymore !!!
Any idea of a solution to this issue ?
Many thanks
Cheers
Linda on September 11, 2007 at 11:47 am said:

I just tried your solution and it appears to have worked. I have not tried it extensively, but apparently You are a HERO.
IAN on September 13, 2007 at 8:14 pm said:

Drae Edd, Word 2007 freeses up every time i open it. I have removed the updates as suggested but it is still freezing on the screen and I have to go to deck to switcher to open other files.
Microsoft just dont care and you are the only person who seems to worry about their reputation. Please advise if you can.
Randy on September 14, 2007 at 12:55 pm said:

Thanks this wored perfectly!!!
Beverley on September 20, 2007 at 1:58 pm said:

Question: I have Vista and Office 2007. From the beginning Word locks up when I close it having opened the document as an attachment to an Outlook email. It goes thru the automated fix it cycle, comes up with no solution, shuts Word down and then reopens it for me. At first it only seemed to happen if Word was an attachment; now it seems to happen if I open a doc by directly clicking on it from Explorer instead of opening from within Word. It is time consuming to wait for it to cycle and is getting annoying. Do you have any ideas?
Ed Bott on September 20, 2007 at 2:28 pm said:

Beverley, you should contact Microsoft support. They can help you sort out the issues better than anyone can in this comments thread, which is not set up to offer tech support.
Nathan on September 23, 2007 at 12:01 pm said:

Thank you very much! I am glad that there are people willing to post their knowledge in these forums.
Phil Craig on September 26, 2007 at 2:53 pm said:

Thanks! Took me a couple of hours to find out about this. But it fixed it.
Ted B on October 1, 2007 at 6:17 am said:

Thanks. Been dealling with this for 2 weeks. Uninstalled Office 2007 – reinstalled … no help….uninstalled and installed 2003 word worked but had other issues…..uninstalled 2003 reinstalled 2007 same issue…
applied this fix and BAM! all is well.
Thanks again!
Ted
Caroline on October 10, 2007 at 1:40 pm said:

Thank you for the solution! Worked like a charm.