Office crash with unknown fault

[Shazaam]

Running Vista home for about 2yrs using ms office 2003 w/o problems. Recently (noticed about 3 wks ago), all of my ms office 2003 programs (word, excel, ppt) began crashing when opened directly (i.e. double click the desktop link or the program file .exe, or via the run command). Within seconds I see MS has encountered an error and needs to close (see word error code below as an example). Word will not open in safe mode or w/o add-ins, excel will only open in safe mode (/s), but not w/o add-ins (/a). However, if I double-click a previously saved office file (ppt, excel or word), the program opens the file fine with no problems yet identified (except regarding endnote described below). I can also start a new blank document just fine once I have opened a previous document. Also, I can open word by double clicking the normal.dot template.

Things I've tried to no avail:
1) ms office updates (sp3)
2) vista updates (including sp2)
3) deleting the word template (normal.dot) (which would only fix word)
4) changing the word template location
5) changing to different default printers
6) detect and repair, reset default settings
7) lowering macro security settings and deleting the list of trusted publishers
8) disabling firewall (ZA) and AV (nod32) from startup
9) ms word has a support template to fix things. the file opens but the macros crash once clicked
10) uninstall, delete all mention of office from program files, app data, registry, and re-install
11) No add-ins are listed. I had endnote X installed, but word disabled it. I've since uninstalled it to no avail. After re-installing it, word will disable it.
12) Perusing google, web forums, ms office web page, etc. for suggestions to try.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX
Application Name: WINWORD.EXE
Application Version: 11.0.8307.0
Application Timestamp: 49ee835a
Fault Module Name: unknown
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Offset: 00396ed0
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Data: 00000008
OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

see if you have any
restore points that date back
before the problem started.

if so, then make a restore
point for today,

then revert the system back
and see if office becomes
functional.

[Shazaam]

good thought, but I don't have any system restores that date back far enough.

So this is kind of random, but perhaps you can shed some light on this fix...

By unclicking the startup task pane (under tools\options) in word, ppt, and excel, all three start up just fine via the desktop link (and have stopped disabling the acrobat add-in). I haven't tried to re-enable endnote, but will post the results.

Does this "fix" give any clues to what's going on? thoughts and comments welcome.

Endnote still causes word to crash. I'm guessing this isn't an issue with endnote per se, but a general issue with running macros. Security is set to medium. Using the support template to fix word problems also causes word to crash as soon as I click on one of the repair keys.

When word tries to repair the problem via restarting and recovering the document template, styles 1 is listed as the only repair...Resaving the template does note however fix the problem. Any thoiughts? Perhaps it's time to call MS.

you mentioned norton
and it is not always friendly.

so I would simply uninstall
all the third party anti virals
to ensure there are no mis
configured hurdles being
imposed on office.

disabling may not be
sufficient.

then try office and the
detect and repair
feature again..

lastly, you might also be entitled
to free support from microsoft,

that is if you haven't utilized
their offer yet.

the 90 days of free tech
support for office start on
the submission of the
first ticket.

so you might consider going
to microsoft.com and search their
support to submit a ticket,

that is if no one else has
any suggestions to offer.

unfortunately, it is not
easy to figure out bugs
involving office.

I would certainly place
the monkey on microsofts
back and let them figure
out what the problem is.

in doing so, they may
recognize a need to issue
a fix.

incidentally, if you get
the issue resolved,

it would be a good idea
to post it on the newsgroup.

Why? Lots of other people run macros in Word w/o it crashing.

If you remove Endnote, do the crashes stop?

[Shazaam]

Obviously, ms office is designed to work with macros. My specific problem deals with a conflict between ms office and macros on my computer (i'm guessing) hence the crash when macros are run. Endnote had always been installed. I provide it as a specific example of the type of problem I'm having. Running other macros results in a similar crash with unknown fault on my system. Possible suggestions for a fix or a place to start in addition to those already mentioned/listed.

Problem solved:
Data Execution Prevention (DEP) was secretly causing the problems. I was installing a new video driver and dep kept killing the setup.exe. Interestingly, I've had problems before with this service and had turned it off. Guess an update turned it back on. Anyways, by disabling DEP my problems with word were solved which were:

startup task pane caused crash immediately upon fresh startup but not from a previously saved .doc (once disabled, word startup was fine)
asking word help a question caused immediate crash
running endnote caused crash
other macros embedded in .doc files caused crash

To disable DEP:
Open a command prompt and type:
bcdedit.exe /set nx AlwaysOff

or:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

RESTART
verify it's off via typing in the command prompt:
wmic OS Get DataExecutionPrevention_SupportPolicy

0 = off
1 = on for all
2 = on for somethings (google this for more info).

Thanks for your comments and help. I always though MS help was an oxymoron but it looks like MS security falls in that category as well.

OK, going back upthread and re-reading puts in more in context.

If it were my computer, I'd first disable or uninstall all add-ins then
try a simple macro like:

Sub TryThis()
MsgBox "Do I make it crash?"
End Sub

If that kills the app, I'd begin to suspect a corrupted VBA install; in
that case, I'd uninstall Office completely then run both the installer
cleanup tool and the Office removal wizard -- links found here:

Completely uninstall Office - Office Erasers / Registry Cleaners

Then try reinstalling Office.

Thanks for the detailed followup. How ever did you logic your way to DEP?
That's an impressive bit of detective work.

[lmoore]

Help! I've got the same issue with Endnote. Only I'm using office 2007 and windows 7. I tried to do what you said about the DEP - only my computer is telling me I don't have access to it. How do I change that?

[marcjuju]

Found a solution that worked for me.

I had about the same problem on Windows 2008R2. Actualy The entire office suite (Excel/Word/Outllok) gave me the Office12Crash problem. The problem started appearing after performing a Windows Update. I started uninstalling each one of the updates until the problem was fixed. It appears that uninstalling windows update KB977724 fixed the problem.

Solution: Uninstall windows update KB977724.