[X-Newbies] Word not working

[Al Poulin]

On Oct 25, 2005, at 1:10 AM, Tony Johansen wrote:

> On 18/10/2005 12:01 AM, "Tony Johansen" <tjoh7019 at bigpond.net.au> 
> wrote:
>
>> My wife is having trouble with Word and I have exhausted my 
>> (admittedly
>> limited) trouble shooting abilities.
>>
>> Details:
>> Word opens normally in my user account, can click file and menu 
>> appears, and
>> all functions are as I expect.
>>
>> In her account however if I do nothing it will open a blank page then 
>> after
>> a few seconds the spinning beach ball of death arrives, apparently
>> permanently.
>>
>> If I am quick I can open the file menu and operate some functions 
>> such as
>> previously saved documents, but any further click produces the beach 
>> ball
>> only.
>>
>> She is unable to remember what documents she was working on when this
>> happened (last night)
>>
>> The only way to quit is force quit.
>>
>> Several times as I tried things the dock stopped working and only 
>> returned
>> after relaunching the finder.
>>
>> When I tried to look at activity monitor it said no access and to 
>> contact
>> the administrator. I am the administrator but do not know how to 
>> access or
>> input my password to look at activity in her account.

I'm not sure what Activity Monitor could show you about the internals 
of an application.  But Activity Monitor should run without you 
inputting a password and show you what the Mac is doing.
>>
>> As I tidied up her desktop I discovered 3 small problems.
>> (1) A pdf which required configuration of the program. I clicked yes 
>> to Do
>> you want to configure now? And no further box appeared so I presume 
>> it was
>> automatic (?)
>> (2)Another document declared it had a corrupted file and asked if I 
>> wanted
>> to repair it? Again I clicked yes.
>> (3) I also discovered Internet explorer had 2 icons, one in dock and 
>> one on
>> desktop, so I disengaged the dock one (went up in smoke) and placed 
>> the
>> desktop one in the dock.
>>
>> I suspect she has tried to inappropriately save or open a document 
>> and that
>> word is stuck trying to do an impossible operation or that something 
>> she got
>> off the internet was incompatible.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>
>
> I have tried trashing the Word settings folder as I discovered that 
> trying
> to open that also produces the spinning ball, but that did not help 
> anyway,
> Tried restarting the machine, and tried pulling my hair out, but all 
> seem to
> be equally ineffective.
>
> Unfortunately I never use Word so am totally unfamiliar with the 
> program and
> have no idea how to help her further. The problem is totally in her 
> account.

I know nothing about Word also, but I can offer a few ideas along a 
strategy to attempting repair.

Possibly your wife's data file(s) is(are) corrupted.  If so, you may 
possibly sniff it(them) out by creating a new user account.  Then 
selectively duplicate/copy and drag Word documents from the original 
Documents Folder to the new Documents folder, beginning with a few of 
the oldest files.  If those files open, Word should continue to operate 
in the new account just as it does in your own user account.  Identify 
the latest dated files and test those.  The culprit should reveal 
itself and lock up Word again, or if you get lucky, your wife's 
documents will all be fine.

However, if Word software preferences or some other element in your 
wife's account is corrupted, trashing those preferences should solve 
the problem.  I cannot go into precise details for this, others could I 
hope.  But I would start by looking down the path   wife's home 
account>Library>Preferences.  In other words in Finder, in column view, 
click her little house, click Library, click Preferences.  There, look 
for something that looks uniquely associated with Microsoft Word and 
trash that.  While in the Library, I would rummage around a few other 
places such as Cache and Application Support and just note anything 
that is associated with Word.  But I would not mess with any of that 
without expert advice.

Re-reading the above, I think I would tackle the preference business 
before playing with a new user account.

Beyond all this, I would just do general maintenance in the following 
order.

Run Repair Disk Permissions from Disk Utility that is on the hard drive.
Run First Aid from Disk Utility that is on your OS X installer CD.  
Click on Repair Disk.
Run DiskWarrior.
Run TechTool Pro.
Reinstall Word.  Jump to this if you do not have access to DiskWarrior 
or TechTool Pro.

Good Luck,

Al Poulin
Anger, hate, and revenge are for the devil, forgiveness is for God, 
proactive self-defense is for the rest of us.