Hi guys,
for the past few days I haven’t been able to get my Word files to open. The problem started after the latest Windows update, but the second day after the glitch it did start working again (after a separate update of that program, which happened by itself). That only lasted that day, however, and since then I haven’t been able to open them, no matter how I go about it.
It’s happened once before, don’t know how long it lasted that time because I wasn’t desperate to use it at that time, so didn’t try again for at least six months… But now, because of having had knee surgery and been ordered to stay on sick leave for two months, I’ve been taking this opportunity to finish one of my writing projects. Up until this unfortunate glitch I’ve been writing for a few hours every day and was looking forward to writing more each day, perhaps even finishing it.
My Word program is called Word 2013, so presumably that’s when I installed it on my then new computer, and it’s always worked fine, obvs apart from now and that previous time, perhaps a year ago. That time I downloaded a free version of Word trying to solve the problem, but that didn’t work. The only way it let me open any Word files then was through WordPad – which was shite, probably works for jotting down some quick notes, but not good for writing a novel…but this time around I can’t even open that, in fact I can’t really find it! It seems to have been replaced by Copilot, but Copilot can’t open the Word files either, though it’s supposed to be able to.
I’m getting really frustrated and annoyed, and I’m slightly afraid to google some “solution” that turns out to make things worse…at least I still have all of my files, but if I can’t open them, what’s the point?
So I seek advice from the computer savvy people of this place; can you figure out what happened and how to solve it? Would be much appreciated!
PS, I don’t have the latest Windows, my computer doesn’t have the capacity for it. Was hoping to replace it this summer (but with the economic setbacks of latter half of 2024 and first half of 2025 thanks to the knee injuries, I’m not sure I’ll be able to…)
Bump
Hi Locust. I’m an enthusiastic user, rather than an expert, so I’ll leave it up to other, more informed AWers to give you Word Program knowledge and suggestions.
However I am always looking for workarounds, and here’s a temporary suggestion to at least get at the content of your files.
Assuming you use Windows Explorer and know the basics of Copy, Cut, Paste, you could try the following:
Open Windows Explorer to the folder with your files in. Take a test file, duplicate it. Change the suffix of the copied file from .doc (or .docx or whatever), to .txt.
Then when you click the file, it should open in Notepad (basic program that comes with every pc), at least showing you the text of your file (possibly with lots of Word-style macro script which you can delete).
You could then ‘select all’ and copy the text into any alternative to Word that you find it are guided to.
Hope that helps!
I expect more tech-savvy members of the parish will have better suggestions, but one cause of the problem could be that your Normal.dotm template (i.e. the basic template that Word uses for your files) is corrupt. If this happens, it can cause various issues, including preventing the program from running.
If you Google “word normal template corrupt”, the solution will be explained in depth on various sites, but here’s the AI-produced overview that Google gave me. Bear in mind that once you locate the template, you should probably back it up somewhere before deleting it, just in case. Also, I can’t guarantee that this will work, but fingers crossed for you (and apologies if you know all this already):
“Key points about a corrupt Word normal template:
File location:
The “Normal.dotm” file is typically found in the “C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates” folder on your computer.
Symptoms:
Unexpected formatting changes in new documents
Word crashes when opening new documents
Error messages related to the “Normal.dotm” file
How to fix a corrupt Word normal template:
Delete or rename the “Normal.dotm” file: Open File Explorer and navigate to the “Templates” folder. Locate the “Normal.dotm” file. Right-click on the file and choose “Delete” or “Rename”. Restart Microsoft Word.
Important considerations:
Backup your custom settings:
If you have customized your “Normal.dotm” template with specific formatting styles, consider backing it up before deleting it.
Check for virus infection:
Sometimes, a corrupted “Normal.dotm” file can be caused by a virus. Run a thorough virus scan on your system.”
Then, start Word again. All being well, it should open (creating a new Normal template as it does so).
Like you, I hate the idea of searching for solutions that could make things worse and/or I don’t really understand, but I do know that Word can get corrupted sometimes (I have no proper idea why that happens), and I have seen colleagues talk about deleting/renaming the Normal template to get it going again.
Backing up files and reloading my MS software works for me
Not really much of a Word user, but also running Windows 10 on an ‘old’ (must be 8 or 9 year-old) PC which isn’t Win11 capable.
Late last year, Outlook stopped working for a weekend, following a Windows Update. It was fixed by Monday morning. I did nothing to repair it. So hopefully the next update will resolve it.
I would be tempted to keep checking updates for the next day or so before doing anything drastic.
When you click on the files do you you get any kind of error message?
You could try a repair of Word (or Office). This inspects the Word or Office installation and fixes anything that’s gone astray.
Press the Windows key and X together.
From this menu chose Installed Apps (it’s the first on the list).
From this menu look for Word or Microsoft Office.
From here choose the modify option, then select Repair.
Try free Open Office software to see if that can open the files. You can then save in a variety of different formats to see if Word will read any of those.
I was going to suggest that. It’s designed to open alien files and has less bloatware so might be kinder to your PC.
@locust this is a Good Call.
Download the fantastic, free and open source ‘LibreOffice’ from here:
https://www.libreoffice.org/
Find the word processor in that – it’s called ‘Writer’ – and see if that manages to open your recalcitrant .doc files.
Quite honestly, you might as well use LibreOffice all the time and escape from all that logging-in, password, Microsoft shite for good. It’ll seamlessly open and save Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. as if you’d paid hundreds for the MS version.
Well, I’ll keep that as an option if it happens again, but normally Word (at least the 2013 version, not crazy about the updated versions I’ve seen) works great for me.
And when it works I don’t have to log in at all, I’m guessing they just wanted to validate that my (free) reinstallation didn’t go to someone else who didn’t pay for it (not that much, once, many years ago, so I can’t complain about the mileage).
And as it all works fine now after the reinstallment, I don’t feel a pressing need to faff about with new software if it’s not needed. But good to know for future needs (which I hope won’t occur…)!
Just spent five happy hours writing, taking a break now but will probably write a few hours more later tonight – I’ve found my flow again, so must use it before I lose it!
(Although, TBH, I never find it difficult to write…but I must use this unexpected time to write as much as possible before work looms over me again)
Also Microsoft are crowbarring in their shite AI offering which is increasingly hard to avoid. My W365 sub is coming up and I’m seriously considering getting rid of it.
Plus, at £59 a year for several years, I note it is £84 from next.
Look out for what they’re renewing you to. See here…
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/remove-copilot-from-word/c46d62d3-7eda-4472-85f4-46f961642b36?correlationid=1f0294b6-e885-4561-9d09-646af909733d&from=ContactUsWebBCQR
I don’t have to pay for a subscription, I bought the Office software for a fairly low price when I bought the computer as an addition. Still using it now, 20 years later, didn’t cost me anything to have it reinstalled as I had registered it with Microsoft when I bought it. As far as I can tell, even if I buy a new computer, I will still be able to install that same software on that computer and not pay any additional cost.
It doesn’t get upgraded (I don’t think so anyway) but as I said; this old version of Word (which is the part I use the most although lots of other programs are included as well) is much better than the new one that we have at work. I certainly would go for that free program instead if I was asked to pay that amount per year!
You may well find, if your current computer dies and you need to buy a new Windows 11 one, that your 2013 edition of Word no longer works.
Microsoft like to do that every so often to make you fork out for the latest versions of software.
That is the time to switch to Libre Office.
Ah! So is that the annoying blue-green helmet that has only just appeared. Wondered what that was, but never sought to tap over it, or how you might liberate it. I do, however, appreciate the pre existing spelling and punctuation hints on occasion. I pride myself on my spelling, but my sausage fingers frequently mistype and miss letters.
Well, I’ve had a few very annoying hours, but it seems to be working now!
I went to my Microsoft account and checked, there was a guide for how to reinstall (But first I looked for and found the installation file on my computer, and when I tried to open it I got an error code that I could search).
Unfortunately that guide was so confusing, it said to go there and do that, but the there and the that didn’t exist/work, so I bounced back and forth to try to find the page and the install command, but nothing.
When I was ready to give up I tried to open Word again, just out of desperation, and it suddenly did open – but wait! It wanted me to log in for the installation to be verified, so I did…but no, that was the wrong password, it said. Which made me confused, because it was the same password that I used to log into my Microsoft account, and I didn’t know I had any other password specifically for this Word/Office program. But I looked through all of my passwords that could possibly apply and tried them all. Denied every time.
But OK, I could get a temporary code via my secondary email, great! But then I couldn’t log into my gmail (which I haven’t used for around two years and only got to have a second email for situations like this…) and I had to spend a long time looking for a way to do that – at one point I gave up and looked for another way to verify my identity, didn’t work because it kept sending me in loops that all boiled down to that I needed to be able to open my gmail).
Then I finally managed to get into my gmail account (the amount of spam I’ve binned…two years is a long time) and was able to ask for and receive a temp. code and use it – then it said NO, sorry, but this isn’t the email address used when this account was started! And neither was my other email!
So I had to look through old notes to find my old, now defunct, email and enter that instead, and then it finally accepted that I had the right to use Word…
At least today, I don’t quite trust yet that it will work tomorrow.
I’ll write as much as possible today, and print out the latest pages (I print them out as I go, because it´s easier to browse through pages than to go back and look for passages in the document while writing). Not because of worries that the files will disappear, but then if I must, I can keep going by hand – I need to know how far I’ve gotten and what I have written already to do that!
Anyway, thanks for the advice and encouragement!
I probably should have considered looking for the answers at Microsoft earlier, but I was too panicked! And I have no idea how that new installation happened – just by bouncing back and forth through their pages looking for things to click that weren’t there?…but I’ll take it!
Hopefully I won’t need to verify my identity every time I want to write from now on… 😀