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
    2014-08-22T20:34:32+00:00

    Thanks for trying but I must fall in that 5%. 

    This is an ongoing issue and MS doesn't care.  They have their $ so they don't' give a flying hoot.  I've left voicemails for their second tier techs asking for them to call me and nothing. 

    Thanks again.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-08-23T04:07:53+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.

     Yes, you do.  You stated it's a Windows 8 laptop.  Windows 8 uses Windows Explorer to display files.  It's part of the operating system.  I'm not referring to Internet Explorer, I'm talking about the file management and access program called Windows Explorer.  When you open "This Computer" or "Downloads" or "Documents", you're opening those folders in Windows Explorer.  With any folder open, look at the Menu Bar and you'll see "View".  Click that, and look at the left-most section, you'll see the option to toggle the Preview Pane.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-08-23T04:34:06+00:00

    I use Windows 7, not 8. I wouldn't use 8 if you paid me.

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