Dad's computer issues

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:23 pm

Once again, trying to fix issues on my father's computer in NC from CA.

This one is weird. Word seems to have disappeared from his installed programs.

His shortcuts still have the Word icon, but nothing happens when I click on them.
Word is gone from the program menu.
The links open fine in WordPad.
How can the icons show properly if Word doesn't seem to be installed?

Any suggestions?
Scanning now for viruses.

No way to re-install Word, this is a crappy computer his university built for him and it came pre-installed.
If nothing else I guess I could install OpenOffice.
Thanks.

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:30 pm

Weirder.

Found winword.exe, ran it and it says, "MS Word has not been installed for the current user. Please run setup to install the application."

This computer has run Word fine for the past 6 or 7 years.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:40 pm

is he logged into the correct user profile, reason i ask is because my mom thought she had lost everything, but it seems she logged into a guest account.

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:21 pm

Mark wrote:is he logged into the correct user profile, reason i ask is because my mom thought she had lost everything, but it seems she logged into a guest account.

Hey Mark

Yes, logged in correctly.

Trying an Office SP3 update, even though it doesn't show in Windows Update.

If that doesn't do it, OpenOffice.

He'll be buying a new computer soon anyway.
This is just weird as hell though.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 8:21 pm

What OS? Chance of system restore?

Play with UAC? Try toggling it...back on defaults, back off.

I recall an office DLL that gets stepped on, copy from another computer with the same version of Office, think it was mso.dll.

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:08 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:What OS? Chance of system restore?

Play with UAC? Try toggling it...back on defaults, back off.

I recall an office DLL that gets stepped on, copy from another computer with the same version of Office, think it was mso.dll.

Xp Pro

Will try a system restore tomorrow.
Have OpenOffice on there now, seems to be working ok.

Tried MS hotfixes and a SP3 update, made no difference.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 7:43 am

You can use add-remove programs > ms office > change

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 8:35 am

What program are you using to connect remotely?

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:11 pm

TonyT wrote:You can use add-remove programs > ms office > change

Doesn't show up.

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 6:26 pm

CableDude wrote:What program are you using to connect remotely?

One of the VNCs, I think RealVNC

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 8:27 pm

Did you try the MS Office Diagnostic tool yet?
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-det ... s-windows/

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 9:47 pm

loop2kil wrote:Did you try the MS Office Diagnostic tool yet?
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-det ... s-windows/

No, I did not, no clue it existed.
Thank you.

Too late tonight, unfortunately Sun/Mon are the only days that work with the time difference.

He and my sister are coming out to visit next weekend

but I'll try this as soon as I get a chance.

Appreciate the help.