jeffw_00 Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 Hi folks - my wife runs WIN98SE on a 'clean' and stable PC. [please, no "you should upgrade" comments, I have my reasons]. Word, Excel, and all her other apps run well. EXCEPT:In Word97 (SP2), Tools -> Options, the "Edit" , "Compatibility" and "Track Changes" tabs are....blank!.I have done thorough uninstall/ clean registry/ re-install and nothing fixes it. It's the only problem she has with Office (or anywhere on the machine). Obviously some file is corrupted somewhere but I am out of ideas as to where to look.any ideas? anyone?thanks!/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibe98765 Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Office 97 is full of holes and problems and has long been obsolete. You take your chances running this software. For help I would go to Woody's forum here: http://www.wopr.com/cgi-bin/w3t/wwwthreads.pl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted January 18, 2004 Author Share Posted January 18, 2004 well, if this problem doesn't interest <you>, don't answer it 8-> I've been using word 97 for years and absent this problem it has given me none. In fact, if you try to use word for BIG documents with multiple styles, numbered sections, and such, you'll find WORD 97 more stable and usable than word 2000, I often move documents from the latter to the former to get them clean. (they really screwed up styles in word 2K).still hoping someone has a positive post out there/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Interesting. Daughter runs O'97, on XP, and doesn't have that situation. It sounds like something is corrupt or not installed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corrine Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Jeff, I agree. We used Office 97 at work for extremely complex and lengthy documents. It is a great product. I also used Office97 for years at home on Win95 and had absolutely no problems with any Office product until my hard drive developed bad sectors. Then I had one problem after another with Word. I could create a file but trying to make formatting changes or print envelopes would cause Word to hang. Before I knew it was a hard drive problem, I did the same uninstall, reinstall, etc. with no luck. I certainly hope there are no bad sectors on the hard drive, but you might consider running scandisk and then defrag. BTW, in looking at the Options page in 2000, it isn't any different from my recollection of '97. From what you wrote, I am guessing that the other Options screens are still populated (General, Edit, File Locations, Spelling & Grammar, etc.) on your wife's computer. Strange. I wish I had a suggestion other than scandisk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rons Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 If I recall - deleting the normal.dot file would correct these problems in 97. Once restarted - the file would be rebuilt. Does this jog anyones memory as being the fix?Let us know if this works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corrine Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Of course! Where's my brain at. The usual fix for all problems we ran into at work -- we'd usually rename normal.dot as normal.old and then shutdown/restart. Better that than bad sectors, for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siebkens Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Yep - have run into the normal.dot file causing problems too. Good place to start! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted January 18, 2004 Author Share Posted January 18, 2004 deleting Normal.dot was a good idea - but it didn't help. Yes, the other menus are fine. and Word runs fine on my other Win98SE PCs. I scandisk (as well as ad-aware, virus scan, and backup) every day. and defrag periodically. When I said I did a complete uninstall it included deleting the Office directory. My guess it that it's a corrupt registry setting I missed or some file in the windows/system area that is corrupt and undetected. i said this was a hard one 8-}thanks/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rons Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 I found this MVP link you may wish to take a look at. There are some registry fixes for when toolbars/menu's are missing:http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/MissngMenusEtc.htmLet us know if this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_P Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 When I said I did a complete uninstall it included deleting the Office directory.An uninstall should have removed the windows\system and program files\common files associated with Office. For clarity how did you do the uninstall? Did you go to Start>Settings>Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffw_00 Posted January 18, 2004 Author Share Posted January 18, 2004 I found this MVP link you may wish to take a look at. There are some registry fixes for when toolbars/menu's are missing:http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/MissngMenusEtc.htmLet us know if this helps. This fixed it in a flash. THANKS SO MUCH!How did you find this? (i.e., teach me to fish!)/j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rons Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 I'm glad it worked.MVP - I have several friends who are MVP's and one of them turned me onto the link. :'( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corrine Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 I added it to my bookmarks! :'( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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