Possibly OT: Wierd XP/Winword problem

[Roger Mills]

Has anyone ever come across anything similar to this?

Recently bought a new computer for my wife, pre-installed with XP Home - SP2

Last night, I used Laplink PCmover to copy all the applications, settings and data from her old W98 machine.

Most things seem to work ok, but I can't make Winword work properly at any price. The version copied across is Word97. The symptoms are that it hangs whenever you either click on the fonts drop-down menu, or try to do a print preview.

Other applications which use fonts - Excel, Publisher, etc. plus non-MS applications are ok - it's just Word!

I've uninstalled Word 97 and installed Word 2000 instead. That's exactly the same. I've even backed off the migration and done a system restore to the pre-migrated state and then insalled Word manually - but can't make it work whatever I do. Since it's what SWMBO uses 99% of the time, it's rather important - and having got used to this version (Word97) over an 8 year period, she doesn't want a different version (yes, I know!) - or Open Office (say). It makes me feel like a right prat, not being able to make it work - but I've never seen anything like this before.

Any ideas - even obscure bits of lateral thinking appreciated.

[Quaoar]

Google word97 windows xp for solutions.

Q

[TMC]

If not you have probably screwed the registry

So format the hard drive re install windows and install at least office 2000 as office 97 is no longer supported and unless you have sr1 and sr2 service packs (or your version is SR2) it will won't work properly anyway

Tony

[TMC]

Forgot to add that microsoft uninstalls were not that complete in older versions of office and often left files and registry entries which other office products would then not overwrite.

[Neal]

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I think you would have more luck checking your graphics drivers - I know it sounds funny, but I have had experience of Woprd acting very weird , and the culprit was slightly screwed up drivers. All other progs seemed to cope fine, but Word did not

[Roger Mills]

Thanks to all those who replied. I think I've fixed it - after doing a bit of Googling.

It appears to be a 'feature' of Word (and possibly Powerpoint) that the font drop down and print preview don't work if your default printer isn't a pukka one. Since I was setting up a new computer, I hadn't physically transferred the printer from the old one, but was using it as a network printer - which happened not to be accessible when I was testing word.

Once I'd sorted the printer, Word worked ok - even Word 97! Wish I'd known before I trashed the system!

[The Natural Philosopher]

I go along with this.

Star by seeing if later drivers exist for the graphics card, and then turn off any hardware accelerations and suchlike.

Many laptop graphics adapters are distinctly non standard.

Could be crap hardware as well.