MS Word Toolbars missing

[MagicFingers]

My friend has a Dell pc with XP Home. It has Word 2002, I think, as part of the standard install of Works. He has 4 users on it, with him being the primary one. His Word has lost all of its toolbars, even the Standard Menu bars. The other 3 user's Word works correctly. That is, if you are logged in to their account.
I tried replacing his "normal.dot" file with one of theirs, but no luck.
I reinstalled Word from his CD, (But didn't uninstall it first).(Not repair)
I tried about 4 different things mentioned in the MS Word help pages - no help.
When you go to Tools, Customize, NONE of the toolbars are there! So, they can't be restored that way.
Does anyone know what may be causing this?
Thank you!

(Questions, I got questions!)

 

[BrownEyes26]

Hey I could be wrong, but try this:
Go to the View, Toolbars, and he can check which one(s) he would like to have displayed.

OOPS! Edited to say that I skim posts way too much
Good luck.

 

[Weird Harold]

When you go to Tools, Customize, NONE of the toolbars are there! So, they can't be restored that way.
Does anyone know what may be causing this?
Thank you!

Try Browneyes suggestion first. I think Customize only works on the toolbars chosen for display.

If that doesn't work, I think the problem is in the registry. Since he has other users with Word configurations that work, compare the working registries against his registry and rebuild the missing portion. (the problem is in the "per-user" section of the registry.)

 

[MagicFingers]

Re: Re: MS Word Toolbars missing

Try Browneyes suggestion first. I think Customize only works on the toolbars chosen for display.

If that doesn't work, I think the problem is in the registry. Since he has other users with Word configurations that work, compare the working registries against his registry and rebuild the missing portion. (the problem is in the "per-user" section of the registry.)

There are NO toolbars, so not even EDIT. But I can drag all the File, Edit, etc, individual menus up to recreate the standard toolbar, but the big list of toolbars is missing still.
I looked at the registry, but the one thing that looks like it should contain the problem, Programs/MS/Office/9.0/Data/Toolbars contains a LONG string of numbers and I have no idea what they mean. It is even too long to see them all.
Where is the "Per User" section?
Would it correct the registry if I uninstalled the program, then rebooted and installed it again?
I don't want to try "Last known good configuration" (If XP has that), because I may have to go back to May and that would mess up other things.
Thanks.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Re: Re: MS Word Toolbars missing

I looked at the registry, but the one thing that looks like it should contain the problem, Programs/MS/Office/9.0/Data/Toolbars contains a LONG string of numbers and I have no idea what they mean. It is even too long to see them all.
Where is the "Per User" section?

The "per user section" should be in the HKEY_USERS section of the Registry. When that sectionis expanded, there should be .default, <current user> and software sections -- unless XP has drastically rearranged the registry from the way Win 95, 98, and ME registries are organised.

(DrWatson identifies tasks loaded from that section of the registry as "per user," hence the term I used for it.)

What you need to do is compare all of the MS Office (and MS Word) keys for a user where the toolbars work to the user where the toolbars dont work.

You will probably have to export the relevant keys to a *.reg file for each user and use the compare file function of MS Word to detect the differences easily. (*.REG files are plain text format files and might need to be renamed to *TXT for Word to open them -- depending on how you've got Word configured for opening non-Word format files.)

Registry data that is a long string of numbers and letters are usually "stream" identifiers. I'm not sure if that would be the right section or not.

Uninstalling MS Office completely, rebooting and reinstalling everything might fix the problem, but it would definitely involve all users reconfiguring any personal quirks and information afterwards. (Rebooting is an important step, because that removes the registry entires for the deleted program. It might be necessary to manually remove some registry entries -- I'm not sure how good XP is removing them automatically, but Win 98 often leaves some registry keys hanging whenprograms are deleted.)

 

[Weird Harold]

One Registry Key from my system:

[HKEY_USERS\Harold\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options]
"UpdateDictionaryNumber"="1"
"PICEDITCLASS"="MSPhotoEd.3"
"NoEditTime"="0"
"AutoSpell"="0"
"AutoGrammar"="0"
"EnableMacroVirusProtection"="1"
"WPHelp"="0"
"BackgroundSave"="1"
"BackgroundPrint"="1"
"PlainTextAutoFormat"="0"
"StartWhatIsNew"="1"
"AUTOSAVE-PATH"=""
"PROGRAMDIR"="I:\\Microsoft Office\\Office"
"TOOLS-PATH"="I:\\Microsoft Office\\Office"
"PICTURE-PATH"="I:\\Microsoft Office\\Clipart"
"STARTUP-PATH"="I:\\Microsoft Office\\Office\\STARTUP"

(The data element in Bold might be your problem -- if it's wrong, word would be looking in the wrong place for the available toolbars.)

 

[MagicFingers]

Thanks

Thanks for confirming about needing to reboot after uninstalling Word. I thought that that might be the case - registry needs to rewrite itself after.
I think I will probably try this, but I will look at the registry again first. It looks like your copy is ME or '98? I believe his XP reg. looked different, but I have a good idea what to look for now.
Hmm, not sure what the stream data means, but I'll let you know what I find.
It will be a few days before I can get back there to his PC.
I studying for my W2K -Server MCP exam Tue. Can you help with that one? (Close to ready)

Just trying to provide questions for all those answers you have, WH! Thanks mucho, and I'll let you know what I find.
MF

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Thanks

It looks like your copy is ME or '98? I believe his XP reg. looked different, but I have a good idea what to look for now.

Yep, mine is Win98SE. I've never had occassion to look at an XP registry, but the basic principles should at least be the same.

 

[ReadyOne]

XP registery is mostly the same. Programs will use it the same way (same keys, etc.)

The subtle diference is that the most user data is now kept in NTUSER.DAT in Documents and Settings/<user>. The current user's stuff is visible as HKCU when you run regedit.

(BTW regdit32 was been set back to look like regedit. Phooey on MDI!).

To compare your stuff with another user's, highlight HKLM (HKEY-LOCAL-MACHINE) and then File/Load Hive. Load Hive is greyed out except for when HKLM is the current selection. Follow the directions and browse for the correct NTUSER.DAT. Pick a unique name for the new hive!

When you question first appeared, I spent time browsing around the register/setup files for an obvious connection, but didn't find any. I run XP Pro and Office 2K.

You might wnat to read http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;291484&Product=wrd2003

They suggest either a macro is running from the startup template (think virus) or,

by deleting the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Data Word will rebuild it next time it starts.

 

[MagicFingers]

Suggestions

XP registery is mostly the same. Programs will use it the same way (same keys, etc.)

The subtle diference is that the most user data is now kept in NTUSER.DAT in Documents and Settings/<user>. The current user's stuff is visible as HKCU when you run regedit.

(BTW regdit32 was been set back to look like regedit. Phooey on MDI!).

To compare your stuff with another user's, highlight HKLM (HKEY-LOCAL-MACHINE) and then File/Load Hive. Load Hive is greyed out except for when HKLM is the current selection. Follow the directions and browse for the correct NTUSER.DAT. Pick a unique name for the new hive!

When you question first appeared, I spent time browsing around the register/setup files for an obvious connection, but didn't find any. I run XP Pro and Office 2K.

You might wnat to read http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;291484&Product=wrd2003

They suggest either a macro is running from the startup template (think virus) or,

by deleting the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Data Word will rebuild it next time it starts.

WH, I use W98SE also - don't see any reason to change (If it aint broke, don't fix it!)( and my games work better here- Another question for later about Viper racing and NFS(Need For Speed) not working in NTFS)

Ready One: My first thought was a virus -had one years ago at work in Office'97 that messed up the Normal.dot template. Here, We ran Norton with the latest definitions and found nothing.

I read that same MS document you listed and tried all the suggestions. When we used this, it ran OK!
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Winword.exe" /a

Which points to one of 3 things. Renamed the Normal.dot and the Data folder in registry, and no apparent macro is running.
So, it still looks like a registry problem. Trying their other "Fixes" didn't fix it. ALT-V didn't do anything. So, I will get back to it later this week and check out the Reg.

Thanks to you both for looking at this. I know it is something I should be able to fix, and I WILL, or die trying.
But first, got to pass my exam tomorrow! Wish me luck.

 

[MagicFingers]

Fixed it!

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options
or something close. There's a Toolbars line under this with hundreds of binary data bits there on a good one. Only about 15 hex bytes on his "Bad" one.
I found another user's data and copied and pasted it over the bad user's toolbar data.
and IT WORKS FINE NOW!!! Yea!

Kids, please don't try this at home without supervision from an expert. The registry is not something to be screwed with. I did because I know a little bit about it, and because I know what to do if I had messed something up. And I had tried everything else first.

I love all the technical questions here and know that my problem may help someone else understand their computer better, just as other ones have helped me. I hope so anyway.
Thanks, MF

 

[ReadyOne]

Glad you got it fixed.

M$'s suggestion about deleting the registry key would probably work fine for someone else who finds this thread while researching their own occurance of this problem.

The registry key can also be renamed (instead of deleted) with the same effect. Then if you don't like it, deleted the newly added key and then rename your saved key back to the original name. Select the key and right click.

Or, it's possable to export a key (and its sub keys), then re-import them. Look at the File menu on the tool bar.

PS: The version numer in the key name changes with your version of Word. Change the "8.0" or "10.0" or (probably) "11.0" as needed.

 

[MagicFingers]

This was the wrong key for me

Glad you got it fixed.

M$'s suggestion about deleting the registry key would probably work fine for someone else who finds this thread while researching their own occurance of this problem.

The registry key can also be renamed (instead of deleted) with the same effect. Then if you don't like it, deleted the newly added key and then rename your saved key back to the original name. Select the key and right click.

Or, it's possable to export a key (and its sub keys), then re-import them. Look at the File menu on the tool bar.

PS: The version numer in the key name changes with your version of Word. Change the "8.0" or "10.0" or (probably) "11.0" as needed.

I had renamed the ...10/word/data to /olddata, which I could see there, right along with the newly created /data key.
This was the microsoft suggestion, as stated in your post, above.
The problem was, this was the wrong key for my/his problem.
Our bad key, Toolbars, didn't show up under 10, only 8.

Good clarifications nonetheless.
Thanks.