Office 2007 - Word has stopped working !
Yesterday while trying to open a DOCX file, my Word started to crash. Everytime I would open, i will get a message saying "Word has stopped working". However i tried to open the document, this kept on happening. Checking event log took me no closer to the issue
The message was "Faulting application WINWORD.EXE, version 12.0.6211.1000, time stamp 0x46d4a7df, faulting module wwlib.dll, version 12.0.6212.1000, time stamp 0x46e03d42, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x000210c6, process id 0x1738, application start time 0x01c8b579a153ac6b." with an EventID of 1000
I then tried to open a DOC file suspecting something had gone wrong with DOCX and that too caused the crash and needless to say Word had been working all these days. I hate it when things start to go wrong with no obvious reason.
I was sure that there no devil's hand at work, so what went wrong all of a sudden? I then noticed "Connecting to Printer, Press ESC to Cancel" in the status bar when loading the document. Since I was travelling my default network printer was no longer accessible. Hmm ! Was that it? I set my local Microsoft XPS Document Writer as default printer and all seemed to be fine again. Word was able to open the documents without any issues.
It is strange that Word tries to connect to the default printer on startup itself. Ideally this should not happen till I really try to print. Afterall I was just trying to read the document !!
Comments
Even if the default printer is not available and you are trying to print, Office should not crash. It should probably display a warning message.
Posted by: Vijay | May 14, 2008 08:07 AM
Vijay, what you are saying is what i would also expect it to do, but that isn't the case. Would it be possible for you to try this and share your findings?
Posted by: Atul Gupta | May 20, 2008 04:00 PM
I had the same problem and the same solution pretty much. As soon as I set the default printer to Windows XPS, word began to open. I did have a message eventually that my Dell 5100cn printer driver was causing the problem, and I'm downloading new drivers at this moment, but it is a problem with the printer driver for sure. I'm not at SP1 for Vista yet either, so can't blame the Service Pack this time.
Posted by: Joe Jett | May 22, 2008 03:36 PM
Joe, did the new printer driver help you?
I have a HP printer which I purchased recently and am using the latest driver that I downloaded from their site.
Posted by: Atul Gupta | June 2, 2008 12:04 PM
But the real issue is WHY is Word waiting for my non-existant printer (I'm on a train, no printer nearby...)?! And why is there no mentioning of this at the Microsoft SUpport site?
I've been having this problem regardless of which "real" printer driver I'm using. If I use a "file" printer driver of some sort Word opens just fine, but then I have to reselect my real default printer when I want to use it. Not a solution.
Posted by: Andreas | June 3, 2008 11:01 PM
I have downloaded the latest Dell drivers and still have the problem.
If I choose a different Dell printer no problem. Must be with the 5100cn drivers.
Posted by: Jim Rodriguez | July 9, 2008 08:36 PM
Thanks a lot for figuring this out. The same problem occured to me today. After trying several solutions from other websites (changing registry entries, etc.) changing the default printer did it for me.
Posted by: Ralph Reisser | July 9, 2008 10:17 PM
Jim, maybe on Dell it is specific to 5100cn, but this issue isn't Dell printer specific. I have HP P2015d and have issues with it.
I have now made the XPS printer as default and switch to the actual printer while printing. Not an elegant solution, but better than having Word crash on me everytime !!
Posted by: Atul Gupta | July 10, 2008 05:34 AM
I uninstalled the printer that was causing the problem and reinstalled it. Now everything works fine and I can use my preferred default printer.
Posted by: Ralph Reisser | July 14, 2008 07:35 PM
I had the same problem and the same solution worked. The printer I am / was using is HP LaserJet 3600n. I am running Office 2007 with XP SP3. Anyways, I am not sure who to turn to - Microsoft or HP?
Posted by: Shayne Pierce | November 19, 2008 04:42 PM