MS Word and appcompat.txt error

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Hi all,

I have a PC that a colleague has brought in from home that crashes when trying to open word, the error report has details that indicate something to do with a file called appcompat.txt.

Now I've had this before and traced it to some kind of spy-ware/ad-ware but cant remember what I did to fix it. I also could be wrong and it could be something else, I've searched for the past half hour but to no avail. Does anyone have any experience with this or can shed a little lite on how to fix the problem.

Si

 

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I sorted it, I remembered what it was so for anyone that gets something similar heres what it was.

If Word is not launching for you at all or is crashing or freezing as soon as it comes on the screen, odds are your global template is corrupt or something is loading automatically in your Word Startup folder that is mis-configured or corrupt. To see if it's a corrupt global template or some add-in that is loading on startup, go to your Start button and click on Run. In the Run box, type "winword.exe /a" (without the quotes, but WITH the space before the slash).

If Word launches OK, then it probably is either a bad normal.dot file or a corrupt add-in (since this switch launches Word with a clean, empty template and no add-ins). To get yourself a new, uncorrupted template, simply close Word and search your computer for normal.dot and rename or delete it. (If you find more than one, rename or delete ALL of them.) When you launch Word again, it will look for normal.dot and if it can't find it, it will create a new one.

If you are using Windows XP, normal.dot is a hidden system file and may not show when you search for it. If you can't find it, go into My Computer and click on the Tools menu and choose Folder Options. In there, click on the View Tab and put a check where it says "Show hidden files and folders" and UNCHECK "Hide extensions for known file types" and "Hide protected operating system files". Now, when you search for it, you should find it. If you still can't find it look for it here:
C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

 

Cool Si, another useful piece of advice.

Ice Cold VB coming your way *toss*

 

neat... thanks Si...

 

Did not work for me.
I'm running XP with MS Word 2002
Cleared templates, reloaded Word but still get this annoying error message
Any updates?
Spencer