A family of Microsoft word processing software products for creating web, email, and print documents.
Here's how i fixed the exact error message people are reporting in this thread.
When i tried to change the compatibility mode on Winword.exe i found there were no options abvailable so i right clicked and selected Troubleshoot Compatibility.
From here select Troubleshoot Program then tick I Can't See My Problem Listed and then select Windows 8 from the next screen and apply the changes and it worked.
I should also note i had Abbyy finereader installed and the plugin was causing Word to crash so i simply opened in safe mode and disabled the plug-in.
Hope that at least helps someone.