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
    2013-05-09T15:36:57+00:00

    Thank you, retired from Mars. This worked for me too, after the advice from Microsoft did not!

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-04-11T15:57:09+00:00

    Thank you very much, this helped a great deal when trying to recover valuable GCSE work.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-03-28T11:02:48+00:00

    I had a similar situation just today, and, after half an hour of searching for available solution, I just let Word to get me to the moment where I should choose encoding from which it could try to exctract content of "word" file.

    At that moment I saw first line of "word", and it said PDF 1.5

    After saving this file (it was in e-mail) to somewhere on my computer, with Shift+Right click I chose open with, ignored recommended programs and chose Acrobat Reader... and it opened...

    So, when everything else fails, sometimes it pays off to let the program to try to work it out for itself... gem you may find after that (as said by Yoda, although isn't recorded)

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