# Word 2003 not responding



## QualiMedd (Oct 18, 2007)

Have problem with word 2003 . Whwn word opens all is fine until I hit a key or try to open anything. Word gives the hourglass which stays and gives the message Word (not responding).

I have cleaned the registry , reinstalled office 3 times and still same problem. Help!


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## tosh9i (Aug 3, 2006)

When you say "reinstalled", do you mean you just reinstalled it, or that you uninstalled and then installed it (fresh installation).

Do you have any "add-ins" that might be interfering with Word.


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## kinbard (Jul 1, 2006)

Try clicking help, detect and repair.


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## itworkedforme (Oct 28, 2007)

I have just spent hours today on my PC. Got Vista Home and for some reason was unable to access files in My Documents, USB, desktop etc via Office 2003. Word, Excel etc. Downloaded Service pack 3 to do avail. Everything worked fine until a few days ago. Restored PC to three weeks ago and still nothing. Finally after searching the web found a similar problem in so much as WHEN (on the rare ocassion) Word tried to open it showed that is was being scanned at the bottom of the screen. It was suggested that I temporarily close my Norton. Found out that Norton was not working so had to completely uninstall it (downloaded uninstall tool) and then after re starting computer lo and behold Office 2003 worked fine. Just for info one cannot uninstall Office 2003 update alone. You must uninstall the whole of Office and the update will go with it. Then after restarting the computer install Office 2003 from CD (fresh install).


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## JustAnotherDude (Oct 31, 2007)

If previous suggestions don't help you, try opening the task manager and see what process is using CPU while Word shows the hourglass. If no task is using a high percentage of CPU (meaning, the "idle" task shows something like 99%), then look in the applications tab and see if it shows "Not responding" for Word. If that's the case, something else on the computer - antivirus, antispyware, or worse... a virus or spyware - is likely to be causing the issue.

Hopefully it goes without saying, but I will say it anyway: make sure you have all critical updates for Windows and for Office installed.
And that reminds me... if you have the Sun JRE on the computer, make sure it is up to date also, and that ALL previous versions are removed. The Sun JRE "updater" does NOT remove previous versions when it "updates", and is in fact very strange - it leaves previous versions installed, accessible AND vulnerable to the security issues that were fixed in the updated version!
To check for security issues, use the free Secunia Software Inspector, found at http://secunia.com/software_inspector/

Good luck with getting the problem resolved.


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