Why won't Microsoft Word open?

May 28, 2008 6:25 PM

Every time I open Word I get the Microsoft Office Setup Assistant opening without letting me open Word. I removed then reinstalled Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and have the same problem with all office apps. Help?

Apple reformatted my laptop and when I restored everything from my external hard drive, opening Word 2008 for Mac resulted in the word icon bouncing in my dock then the Microsoft Office Setup Assistant appearing in the dock. The Word icon disappears.

Microsoft Office Setup Assistant opens to the Customer Experience Improvement Program letting me choose to participate in a survey. No matter whether I choose yes or no, it goes to the next page which is titled Get Started and gives me options to go online and learn more about the product, register the product with Microsoft, or just Finish. Again, no matter what I do, when I get to Finish it opens up the AutoUpdate, lets me manually/automatically check for updates, then closes.

Rinse, repeat every time I try to open Powerpoint, Excel, etc.

I tried removing then reinstalling Microsoft Office 2008 - I have the same problem. Any ideas/suggestions? Thanks!

posted by arnicae to Technology (8 answers total)

What did you do to remove it?
posted by Pants! at 6:37 PM on May 28, 2008

Response by poster: I couldn't find an uninstaller so I just deleted it then ran the original install cd's again - they looked for but didn't find any previous versions of Word to remove, though.
posted by arnicae at 6:41 PM on May 28, 2008

Response by poster: The plot thickens - I removed it (this time using the uninstaller) then reinstalled it but didn't install SP1 (as I have before) and now it works! Should I not install SP1?
posted by arnicae at 7:48 PM on May 28, 2008

You've got to uninstall *all* of it except for the Microsoft User Data folder in Documents (though you can delete that, too, if you don't use Entourage--if you do use Entourage you MUST keep it). That means getting the Microsoft folders out of your user Preferences and out of Application Support folders found in both the root Library folder and the user Library folder.

I had the same problem and deleting these folders solved it for me.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:48 PM on May 28, 2008

You do need to install SP1. The bug fixes in it speed up performance enormously.

If, when you reinstall, it doesn't give you a screen to enter your user name and/or serial number, then you haven't deleted all the correct files. You'll have to go back and make triple sure to get al the Microsoft preferences.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:52 PM on May 28, 2008

Are you using a pirated serial number? This is a known issue with SP1 and pirated serials.
posted by rbs at 8:23 PM on May 28, 2008

Response by poster: nope, original cds from the Apple store - any other ideas?
posted by arnicae at 9:33 AM on May 29, 2008

Time to call M$ - this is a known problem, and has to do with registration keys that are blacklisted by SP1. Once you prove that you bought it legitimately, they'll issue you new keys.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 12:46 PM on May 29, 2008