Sorry, something went wrong and Word was unable to start. (24)

Anonymous
2013-02-21T21:37:42+00:00

I am running Windows 8 and am unable to repair Microsoft Word 2013 after getting this message.  I also get this message when trying to open all microsoft office documents.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Install, redeem, activate | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2013-02-22T12:36:35+00:00

Hi Dan,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community. I will assist you in providing steps to determine the cause of the issue while working with Office 2013 on the computer.

This error may also occur if the Office installation is corrupted.

Do you have multiple version of Office installed in the computer?

Step 1:

You may run the fix it from the article below to remove corrupt Office 2013 keys from the computer:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2739501

Note: Try to save the fix it tool to the desktop and then run it to remove Office.

If fix it tool failed to run, you may try the manual removal of Office 2013 step from the above article.

Step 2:

Try the steps from the section ‘Start an In Private browser session’ in the article below:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2811180

Once you complete the above mentioned steps, you may download Office 2013 using the link below and install it using the subscription license and verify the status

https://officesetup.getmicrosoftkey.com/

https://office.microsoft.com/MyAccount.aspx

I hope the above steps help. If you need further assistance on this particular issue or any other Office related issues let us know and we will be glad to assist you.

Thank you.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-08-22T20:27:03+00:00

    ...What?

    I don't even have Explorer installed on my laptop. I'm not using Explorer. It has nothing to do with Explorer.

    This has all come as a direct result of trying out Office 365 for a couple weeks. Obviously that was a huge mistake.

    It only occurs when opening or saving a document of the type that MS Office can identify, such as .odt or .doc for word processing types, or .ods or .xls for spreadsheets.

    I have made the default program for these file types OpenOffice (as well as for each individual document), but the next time I try to open any of them, MS Office has again made itself the default program to open these file types, and then throws the error.

    The MS Office programs show up in this "choose default program" window, but not anywhere that I can actually get at them to delete them.

    As stated earlier, I have already uninstalled Office using the native uninstaller. Clearly it left some kind of dirty, half-broken code behind in my machine.

    I've already warned everyone I know to avoid MS Office, and am pointing people at OpenOffice whenever possible. This garbage is costing you business, Microsoft. You might want to pay attention and actually fix it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-08-22T19:58:00+00:00

    This is a known issue and is generally not related to the installation of Office.  For 95% of people experiencing this, their Windows Explorer has a Preview Pane on.  If you turn this Preview Pane off, you will stop receiving these errors.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-08-02T10:50:57+00:00

    Hello,

    Did you try manually uninstalling Office 2013 from the computer and then try to reinstall it.

    If no, lets  manually uninstall Office 2013 by following the section ’Manual steps to remove Microsoft Office 2013 MSI installations’ from the following article this will remove all the installed components of Office 2013/Office 365 from the computer.

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2739501

    Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs.

    Once the uninstallation is completed you may sign in to www.office.com/myaccount using the subscribed/registered email address, download and install Office from my account page and verify the status.

    You may also refer to the general troubleshooting steps mentioned in the article below while installing Office 2013.

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2822317

    I hope the above information helps. Let us know if you need further assistance.

    Thank you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-08-01T23:26:39+00:00

    UNinstall and reinstall does NOT work, I still have the same problem with no preview working either.

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