Microsoft Office 2003 keeps crashing

[Androcles]

My MS office was working OK until MS update downloaded some updates.

I tried to use Word, Excel and Powerpoint and all of them crashed - I got the product open but as soon as I tried to do "save" or "save as", or occasionally when the file was just open, it stopped responding. Alt Ctrl Del produced a "not responding" message and when closed it sent the usual message to MS, which came back with helpful advice to update the product which I did again. Same result - stopped responding.

I have repaired Office, de-installed and re-installed, but same effect and it has now happened on another PC on the network, but not a third. I have scanned for viruses and spyware and all come up clean.

Is this yet more MS Sh*t product or a known problem? I can open MS office files in Lotus Smartsuite and work normally with them....

Any ideas?

[Buenchico]

If you use Sysem Restore it should effectively undo the changes which the updates have made to your system. The only problem then, of course, is that you'll have to decide whether to continue without the updates or have another go at getting them to install properly.

A simpler solution would be to switch to Open Office. Most users say that it's at least as good as Microsoft Office. (Some people say that it's better). It's completely compatible with documents created in Microsoft applications (so you'll be able to continue using existing files) and, best of all, it's free:
http://www.openoffice.org/

Chris

[Androcles]

Thanks Chris,

In fact I have used system restore on both PCs whilst I was waiting for a response and it has worked, so clearly it is the MS updates which are causing the problem - no word about it on any of their techie websites of course .....

[wideboy]

Don't know if this is of any help Androcles?

http://safety.live.com/site/en-Us/article/updateproblems.htm

[wideboy]

PS - Have you checked the Office updates site separately?

[Androcles]

Thanks wideboy.

The first PC with which I had the problem had downloaded the update automatically and installs it when I close the PC down which it did on Thursday night. When the problem occurred this morning, I followed the suggestion on the error message to the update site and was asked to install the new updating system which does Office as well as Windows XP. then went through all the palaver I described in my initital question. The point they make at the end of the link you gave is interesting about switch off all your protection before updating (I'm not sure that is wise but...) as I have McAfee Enterprise Firewall and Virusscan and Ad-Watch running, so maybe that is what stopped the update working properly.....If so, pity they didn't say so before leading you through the upgrade.......... Thanks for the suggestions