Office 2007 configures every time I open it

on my Dell Studio 1555. This happens every time I open a saved file, email attachment, etc. Any fixes? I would rather not do a clean install because I have no idea what I'm doing and don't want to screw something up on a brand new computer.

 

Did you have a trial version, then install a full version over it? This is one of the results of that I try to warn people about, but everyone says I'm crazy.

Are you an administrator or a regular user account?

Are there multiple accounts on this computer?

What version of windows?

 

No, I never had a trial version.

I believe I am an administrator (there is only one account).

Windows Vista 32-bit.

 

what about doing a repair? Open Word, go to the orb -> Word Options -> resources -> Diagnose

 

If it's a brand new notebook then it has to be a Trial version, unless Dell felt really good and gave you a full ver.

Either way IMO the best way to solve that mess is to uninstall Office via Control Panel and re-install. So you'll need to have a copy sitting around somewhere.

 

Have you called Dell yet?

 

It doesn't have a trial version, I installed this version myself. All the computer came with was Works.

 

Is it legit? That's the only thing I can think of why it's not "working" correctly.

 

When you say "configures", what exactly do you mean? Do you get a pop up window that shows the application is configuring for first use?

 

It's legit, and yes, a pop up comes up saying "please wait while windows configures ....".

 

Just throwing a stone into the dark here, but have you been using a cleaner like Easy Cleaner 2.0 by ToniArts?

 

If you open the file from the Program Files directory (c:\program files\microsoft office\office12\) instead of clicking on a shortcut, does the message still pop up?

 

It happens when I open files or open it from the start menu, but not when I open Office from the Program Files directory or from the Dell Dock.

 

Have you looked at this article, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928218/
sometimes some of the required dll's get corrupted when installing. run the uninstaller completely and re-install

 

Please note the time, launch Office, and close it

Now look in EVENT VIEWER

START > right click COMPUTER, choose MANAGE, when console appears, click the arrow next to EVENT VIEWER

Click the arrow next to APPLICATIONS AND SERVICE LOGS

In the middle pane, there should be a list of products....do any show EVENTS (especially MICROSOFT OFFICE DIAGNOSTICS, or MICROSOFT OFFICE SESSIONS)?

If so, double click the entry and a new window will appear. Using the time and date from above, look for events taht occurred when office launched and report back errors

While in EVENT VIEWER, click the arrow next to WINDOWS LOGS

Click on APPLICATION

Using the date and time you noted in step one, look for WARNINGS, ERRORS, of INFORMATION that occurred at that EXACT time


Click on SYSTEM

Using the date and time you noted in step one, look for WARNINGS, ERRORS, of INFORMATION that occurred at that EXACT time

Report back

 

Thank you for the suggestions, everyone. I have actually decided to return (and get a replacement for) this computer because of a hardware issue, but if this problem shows up with my replacement I will definitely come back to/revive this to follow your suggestions.

 

I was having the same issue as the OP. It’s a legit copy I purchased through Microsoft. I do use easy cleaner, just curious how or what this program does that causes office to configure/install.

 

Some registry cleaners can corrupt the registry or delete necessary files. A previous version of Easy Cleaner deleted essential files in Office 2003, which broke Office. It might be doing the same thing to Office 2007.

 

Registry cleaners could very well bork up an application installation. There's an interesting little description that a gent by the name of Paul Wallbank posted at itqueries.com about the conflicting results he got when running Easy Cleaner first in the general Administrators account, and second from a limited user account. To summarize, when run in the limited user account, Easy Cleaner couldn't verify the existence of many of the system files that have entries in the registry (b/c those files are off-limits to limited user accounts for security purposes) and flagged those registry entries as errors to be deleted.

It's quite possible that something similar has happened with the registry keys that keep track of whether or not Office 2007 has been configured or not.

At any rate, since the itqueries.com description is short enough, I've quoted it in full below: