WinWord.exe issue in Vista

Issue: Office 2007
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista

So I had a very strange case today. This afternoon, working the Helpdesk, a client called wanting to get on a remote session to show me the problem. What he showed me would take me the next 2 hours to find the solution.

He explained that whenever he opens Microsoft Office 2007 file on his desktop, It would open Office 2007 but not his file. He would then have to manually go to open file, and open the file that way. Then he would not be able to move the cursor by mouse, only by using the arrows on his keyboard. His toolbar was all grayed out so we would not be able to select bold, italic, underline, or any other editing stuff. He said he tried to reinstall office, repair office, Change or remove objects from office. Nothing seemed to work.

He said this happened after last night. He said his computer loaded a software update for Vista. Perhaps this may have something to do with the problem?

Well i thought "maybe if we roll the computer back to before the update this would be a resolution. The best way i could do this was from "last good known configuration" in the startup menu. When he went to shut down i found he had some updates needing him to restart. So we had these updates install and tried again. Nothing. Lets try the last known good configuration. Still no good.

I also found that he needed MS Office 2k7 SP1 updated. Ok, lets try that. Still no good.

So now I'm at a complete loss. He then says, "hey here is that strange error message I got before. Let me put u back on remote session so u can look at it." Excellent. Now i can see what the issue might me. I did a search for it online and found a fourm saying 2 things might fix the issue.

1) Delete all the .tmp and .dot in the c://Documents and Settings/(username)/application data/microsoft/office/

or

2) go to the Regestry editor, (regedit)
H_KEY_LOCALMACHINE->Software->Microsoft->Office->Word->addin (or addon) if this folder exists, delete it.

The later worked like a charm.^^

Out for the day
Aaron