Office 2013 Word Keeps Freezing (Not responding)

I've been reporting on this problem since September with no benefit from Microsoft support. I've just uninstalled all references to ABBYY with no effect!!!.

I decided to try and convert a document to Word 2013 before I started work on editing. I still got a 'Not responding' fault but more concerning is that I have to switch my printer off and on before printing anything from the document.!! Wont try doing that again.

We've all said it. This product is not fit for purpose on a home machine and Microsoft must now offer a refund under any terms of purchasing product that does not work.

I bought Word 2013 to run on a brand new HP Pavilion. Like some of the other people who've commented, I need Word in my work (I'm a writer and editor), and it needs to handle large documents (hundreds of pages) with figures, graphs, tables, etc. It freezes constantly. I don't get paid for Word-caused downtime. To those commentators who've suggested "fixes": (1) I define "end user" and have no idea what you're talking about, and (2) even if I knew, why should I have to fix a new product that I paid for?

A lot of problems with Office 2013 are caused by third party (non-Microsoft) applications.  This is my (expanding) list of things to try when Office 2013\365 won’t start or crashes:

See the Article “Why can’t I start my Office 2013 application at:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/why-cant-i-start-my-office-2013-application-HA104011864.aspx

Refer to the following website for information on repairing Office 2013\365:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/repair-or-remove-office-2010-HA010357402.aspx

See Office 2013 install woes - http://office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?a=1834

See the KnowledgeBase article “Office 2013 applications crash on launch at the splash screen” at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2813143

Or see the KnowledgeBase article Error: “Something went wrong and we can't sign you in right now” when trying to install Office 2013 at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2811180/en-us/

Also see my response in

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2013\_release-word/microsoft-word-2013-has-stopped-working/67b81016-849f-481a-bce5-bf04797ac03b

Do you have Abbyy Finereader installed on the PC? A number of people have reported that removing it overcomes problems with 2013.  See:

Office programs may crash with the FineReader add-in installed at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2755838

Do you have “Fun Tools” add-in? A number of people have reported that removing it overcomes problems with 2013

Do you have Toshiba Book Reader installed on the PC?  It has been reported that uninstalling that brings Office back to working status.

Do you have the Acrobat PDFMaker add-in.  It has been reported that uninstalling that overcomes an issue with a message appearing that states "The document contains macros. Macro support for this application is disabled. Features requiring VBA are not available. Would you like to open this document as a read only?"

Also see: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2013\_release-word/microsoft-word-has-stopped-working-when-i-close/8375b5b6-4f7e-46ed-a02b-90152ecad287#LastReply and

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_home-word/word-and-excel-2013-crashing-on-windows-7/5389390c-e989-4c8e-8fe0-62673f1410ce?page=4#LastReply

It appears that there may be some hardware incompatibilities as well.  If you have the NVIDIA driver NVWGF2UM.DLL, try renaming it as: NVWGF2UM.old as was mentioned in:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_2013\_release-word/microsoft-word-has-stopped-working-when-i-close/8375b5b6-4f7e-46ed-a02b-90152ecad287#LastReply

From the File tab, select Options and then click on Advanced and then in the Display section of the dialog, check the box for Disable hardware graphics acceleration

For the error message "There was a problem sending the command to the program", use Windows Explorer to access the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15 folder and right click on WINWORD.EXE then on Properties, go to the Compatibility tab and uncheck all the boxes.  It has also been reported that the problem can be overcome by editing the registry at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open and deleting the ddeexec key.

The ddeexec can also be deleted from

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.DocumentMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open.

That fix is described at ...

http://www.dilloway.co.uk/there-was-a-problem-sending-the-command.html

It has been reported that uninstalling FastPictureView and FastPictureViewer Pro… overcomes the issue of the Minimize, Maximize, Close and Help buttons not being visible in Office 2013.

If you have a Canon 8350 printer, try using the Canon MF8000 UFRI LT XPS driver as detail in the post by Riad Amstha on April 14 in the thread at:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office\_365hp-word/office-2013-crashes-with-canon-8350-printer/e2bf6530-92e0-47ef-b6ec-e803a91793d0?page=3#LastReply

This piece of crrap app still constantly freezes on me. I don't have Abbyy Finereader installed on my system so I ruled that out as a suspected problem. I disabled Acrobat PDFMaker Office COM Addin, problem still occurs. I went to C:\Windows\system32\nvwgf2um.dll but noticed I only have nvwgf2umx.dll in the folder so I changed it to nvwgf2umx.old, problem still occurs. Lastly, I went to Control Panel - Devices and Printers, and noticed that my default printer was already set to 'Microsoft XPS Document Writer' so I ruled that out as a suspected problem . I know you tech support guys giving advice mean well, but the solutions that have been laid out on here are a joke. It is irritating when every 20 mins or after I save, Word 2013 freezes. This has really put a damper in my productivity. I never had this issue in Word 2010. M$ needs to release a Service Pack for this app now.

Not sure if this post is still live or not, but I'm also having the problem and can reproduce on multiple computers.  1 running Windows 8.1 and 1 running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.  The document we are trying to open is large (16 MB) and about 50 pages long.  Word 2013 freezes (Not Responding) when scrolling down through the pages.  Hangs around page 7 every time.  It works fine in 2010 and the Word web app.  The original file opened in compatibility mode.  I tried updating it to 2013 format, but the issue still occurs.  I don't have any of those applications mentioned (ABBY, Acrobat, etc.).  I don't have an Nvidia graphics card.  I tried the Microsoft Word troubleshooter and changed the default printer.  Turned off the hardware graphics acceleration, etc.  Problem still happens when opening Word in Safe mode as well.