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
    2014-02-05T05:30:33+00:00

    This is what worked for me:

    I disabled the preview pane when viewing files (running Windows 7 64bit and Office Home premium).

    Before this, I had tried everything and I mean everything. I was about to go back to using Office 2007 until I read this.

    When I enable the preview pane, I get the message 'Sorry something went wrong, Word was unable to start (24)'. When I disable it, it goes away.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-02-27T15:47:55+00:00

    I have been receiving the "Sorry, something went wrong and Word was unable to start. (24)" since I purchased Office 2013, it also appears for Excel.  I tried their fixes and it made it worse.  I was on the phone with Microsoft 2nd tier reps for almost 3 days, losing work time because of it.  This is after first Tier was unable to figure it out.  They tried everything.  It seemed to have been fixed but yet again the error continues.  I emailed the 2 Tier rep as he asked me to if it happened again and he of course did NOT bother to respond.  I wish I would have never spent my hard earned money on a product that causes me these issues.  I used office 2003 for many years and never had a problem. 

    IE 11

    Windows 7 64 bit

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-27T18:14:32+00:00

    Disabling the preview pane did not work for me.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-02-27T18:15:57+00:00

    Oops, sorry, I meant for that reply to go to a different person.

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