Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

office 2003 lock up?

Feb 25, 2005 12:51PM PST

I've been using Office 2003 on Windows XP for a few months now with no problems. Suddenly, tonight, I can't open files in any of the programs without the computer locking up. I need to use the task manager to quit the program. I have tried Word, Excel, and Outlook. (I don't normally use Outlook.) Excel lasted the longest and Word is the worst. Help????

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re: Office 2003 hangs
Feb 26, 2005 11:04PM PST

Michelle,

It's rather remarkable that such different programs as Word and Excel and Outlook all 'hang'. All I can suggest is
a. You delete normal.dot to see if that helps Word.
b. You delete personal.xls and run Excel in safe mode (see http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6129-0.html?forumID=29&threadID=42310&messageID=503479) to see if that helps Excel.
c. You uninstall and reinstall MS Office
d. You do a housecall and panda online check for virusses.

Hope this helps.


Kees

- Collapse -
The Last XP SP3 update hosed Office2003
Oct 10, 2015 3:39PM PDT

I've been having random PC Freezes only when using Word/Excel on my WinXP-SP3 w/Office2003 for well over a year. It seems it happened just after I did the last XP-SP3 & Office security update, just before MS killed their support.

I open Word/Excel and work, most of the time but not always within 15min the PC totally locks up and Word/Excel does not do the auto-file BU (so all is lost). I then must hard force a **** down-reboot to regain control. No other programs do this.

I have uninstalled Office and did full XP repair-reinstall, defrag, reg optimize, and then reinstalled Office2003 ---- all to NO avail.
It is like the last MS DL had a sabotage bug to force all into upgrades!

I still much prefer Office2003 and need the older WinXP for some of my Engineering/CAD programs, Since MS Win(s) are totally backwards incompatible I'm forced to keep XP. I've been told there are some Patch to fix this Memory/PC freezer but cannot find them. I really do not want to be forced into a HD reformat to do a new reload to get rid of some MS Security Update killer-bug but I may have too. I must have the ability of installing 16bit loader programs and I have found 'Virtual' Win7 often does not allow the program to work properly if at all.

- Collapse -
All good here BUT ....
Oct 10, 2015 4:07PM PDT

I found Office 2003 to fail without the Office 2003 Service Pack 3 (which some confuse with the OS service packs.)

Did you install the OF2003 SP3 after the Office install?

- Collapse -
Just original Office2003
Oct 10, 2015 6:23PM PDT

No, did XP -SP3 before Office2003..... But I could not do the latest SP's for Office2003, as MS will not let me, anymore.

I suspect all my work did not clear out the problem issue, and I'll have to do a fresh HD format and load all new to get rid of the problem.... Lots of work to BU and reinstall all.....

- Collapse -
Re: SP3
Oct 17, 2015 2:06AM PDT
- Collapse -
install another package of MS Office
Oct 26, 2015 2:01PM PDT

I agree with guys. You should try to unininstall your MS Office or find virusses. Also you can install another package of MS Office, for example 2010. I like this version.

Good luck!

Note: link to download site removed by moderator.

Post was last edited on October 26, 2015 2:10 PM PDT