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
    2013-11-19T07:27:59+00:00

    Hi Raju,

    Thanks for your advice.

    I have had the same problem on my desktop since about the same time of your post. I tried everything you mentioned here, but none of them worked. I suspect this problem is caused by the windows 7 update since until then office 365 worked fine. But on my laptop, which also runs windows 7, I do not get this error message.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-12-16T21:08:00+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.

    I have the same problem as Dan but, in windows 7 (64 bit). The error only occurs when I open a word doc that is on my external drive, the doc was originally created from Word 2013. I do not have that error when I open a doc on my internal (c:) drive.  I tried your resolution yesterday and, after  the fixit completed I reinstalled office 2013 from my Office 2013 disc, not the download file.  I tried opening a word doc on my external drive again and the same error occurred. 

    Is there anything else I can try to fix that error ?

    I have another error in excel:  The error message says I don't have enough memory to run excel but, it opens any way.  Also, I had office 2007 prior and never had a memory problem. I have 4GB of memory and the only processes running are excel and my anti virus software. Also, I have a dual core processor, 3.6 GHZ.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-01-18T01:22:03+00:00

    I have the same problem with same messages in Word and Excell when trying to open a file from an external drive, including from Dropbox.  The uninstall and reinstall clearly does not work.  very frustrating.  What does MS say?

    EDahls

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  4. Doug Robbins - MVP - Office Apps and Services 323.6K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2014-01-18T10:04:56+00:00

    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

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