Okay, minor but thoroughly infuriating problem - when working in Word for the last few months it has regularly (sometimes once an hour or more) been giving me that looney box 'Microsoft has encountered a problem and has to close - do you wish to send an error report?' It'd obviously be better if it said 'do you wish to destroy all known traces of Microsoft in the universe?' because that's how I feel on losing data if I've forgotten to save for 5 lousy minutes.

Whether Microsoft will ever create anything that actually works is beside the point, but has anyone else had these problems and actually solved them? Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Joe

Go to officeupdate.microsoft.com and update your Office?

Also, does it die on certain actions or just in the middle of typing?

Thanks for the reply - not sure if I can get that office update as don't have my registration number in Japan - very stupid I know.

When does it happen? One time it was after minimising + nothing going on with the doc. Other times when trying cut and paste, yet more times when typing or minding my own business.

Thanks again.

try uninstalling it then reinstalling it . also after u uninstall it delete the folder in program files ( make sure u saved all ur documents from there first )

Ahh that sounds good... perhaps I should delete it forever and use open office? The problem with the uninstall is that I have the disk but not the original number. Tried it after my laptop crashed + after reinstalling it doesn't work without the number (hence I use open office on laptop now). Perhaps if I pleaded my case to Microso$t?

You don't need the serial # for Office to update it (that would be just silly - imagine updating Office in a company with 10 000 users - (unless it's Office 97 i think)). You do need the Office CD or at least the install files unless it's Office XP or later.

Nodsu, thanks for office update idea - I did get some of the way and they let me download some security patches / updates but access was denied after several downloads due to lack of disk. Too early to tell whether it's made any difference but thanks anyway.