Error message: Word cannot start the converter mswrd632.wpc. How can I correct?

Anonymous
2010-01-28T15:50:11+00:00

This error shows up when I try to open certain Word documents using the .doc extension.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Ramesh 181.8K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2010-01-28T17:38:25+00:00

Hi LMatth,

Look at the "Known Issues" section of this Microsoft article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973904

<excerpt>

Let me fix it myself To unregister the mswrd632 converter yourself, edit the registry as follows:

  1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
  2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Text Converters\Import\MSWord6.wpc 3. On the Edit menu, click Delete. 4. Click Yes. 5. Exit Registry Editor.

This change will effectively unregister the converter and disable it for third-party applications and for Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office will use its own text converters to open these kinds of files.

</excerpt>

©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Desktop Experience]

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Anonymous
2012-04-13T21:34:05+00:00

Solution to this is available here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973904

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-03-04T17:00:40+00:00

    Well, that didn't work. Surprise. Microsoft just loves making things difficult. There is no "\Shared Tools\Text converters\Import\MSWord6.wpc" after Microsoft. Like we all have TONS of free time to spend always trying to fix SOMETHING on Microsoft. So tired of it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-09-19T20:16:02+00:00

    I just experienced the problem you described. I did find a workaround on my wife's laptop. It is running windows xp sp3, office 2003, and 2007 converter package.

    I right clicked on the .doc file, then selected "saveas" and chose the option to save as .docx. Then office word could open the file.

    Hope this helps.

    retired from Mars

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-02-28T10:11:29+00:00

    Supplementary question ...

    I ran into this problem when my daughter tried to open a Word 2003 doc on her XP machine. In response to the invitation to install the converter we said ok and the installation happened.

    When we tried to open the doc we were presented with a "file conversion" window asking for an encoding protocol to make the file readable ... the choices were Windows (default), MS-DOS or other; the document preview was gobbledegook characters.

    I have no idea what to do and the file is presented in Word in gobbledegook.

    So I sent the original file to myself and tried opening it in Word 2003 on my Vista machine ... exactly the same thing happened.

    So I went to the Microsoft article and clicked "Fix it" and was told it was for another version of Windows ... ok.

    But I still can't open this file ... and it is a critical document that my daughter spent days working on.

    What do we do?

    And who do we blame in Microsoft for this mess?

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