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
    2011-07-04T18:34:14+00:00

    Just by chance I have had the same problem  (windows 7 and Office 2007) 

    Hit 'OK' in the error message box,

     message reappears, 

    Hit 'OK' in the error message box,

    message reappears,

    Hit 'OK' in the error message box

    (3 times in total)

    and as if by magic the document opened and all was wonderful in the world again.

    I hope this works for you too

    cheers

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-06-27T15:50:54+00:00

    Nope, sorry, none of these fixes work.  Can send to another machine, open, re-save, and send back to original user, and everything is fine.  Even if these fixes did work, I cannot have domain users editing the registry or even resaving files with different extensions (beyond user community knowledge).  How about we fix this so when a domain user with limited knowledge gets an email with a word file, they can just click and open it as normal, mmmmk??

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-06-19T02:11:30+00:00

    You can also use notepad to determine other file types.  I received this error trying to open a .PDF file which someone had accidentally changed the extension to and it was now a .DOC file.  The start of the file in notepad read %PDF-1.0.

    Simply changing the extension back to PDF allowed the file to open (with Adobe PDF Reader of course).

    This information should have been available from Microsoft help pages within Word or on the web but far as I know, it was not.

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