Continual pop-up in Word 'Connecting to Office.Microsoft.com' asking for credentials

Anonymous
2014-07-23T17:37:31+00:00

Starting today when running Word, I am continually receiving the ‘Connecting ....’ message below. I have been running Office Home/Student 2010 for the past 4 years and have changed nothing in that time. I have tried repairing Office but a file is apparently missing. I have removed all entries from Credential Manager and I’m not running a Proxy Server.

What could it be?

Thank you.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Suzanne S Barnhill 279.4K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2014-08-04T19:58:05+00:00

I have been in contact with MS and have been informed that this issue is corrected in an update to Office 2007, 2010, and 2013. If you have one of these versions and have installed the latest updates, you should not be experiencing the problem. For Office 2003 and earlier, the manual Registry edit will be required.

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Anonymous
2014-08-01T10:21:13+00:00

This problem may be caused by the translation service crash. Please use another service site to replace the current one.

Here you go:

  1. Windows + R, type regedit, press Enter
  2. Go to registry path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\Research\Sources{88686849-2DD9-474D-9300-778E3336FA5D}
  3. Change both QueryPath and RegistrationPathfrom **http://office.microsoft.com/Research/query.asmx** to  **http://rr.office.microsoft.com/Research/query.asmx**
  4. Restart the Word 2010.

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Anonymous
2014-07-23T19:06:11+00:00

Whoops, embarrassment personified.

I could have deleted this thread but decided to leave it as a reminder that computers don’t always behave the way we expect them to.

Evidently my 10 year old grandson was using this laptop this afternoon, which I allow him to do as he’s a clever little chap who has used Windows for about four years. He also likes to tinker and I have just discovered that he has been copying/updating from/to a USB memory stick which is plugged into the router (NAS) and accessed throughout the network.

In the past I have had minor ‘not ready’ issues when attempting to navigate the stick too quickly. I have just opened the stick and ‘repaired’ it and voila Word is back to normal.

Who would have thought that an external device could produce such an error in Word?

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-08-06T05:29:50+00:00

    This little regedit saved me from going crazy. Thanks ChivalryW.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-08-05T22:32:58+00:00

    This problem may be caused by the translation service crash. Please use another service site to replace the current one.

    Here you go:

    1. Windows + R, type regedit, press Enter
    2. Go to registry path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\Research\Sources{88686849-2DD9-474D-9300-778E3336FA5D}
    3. Change both QueryPath and RegistrationPathfrom **http://office.microsoft.com/Research/query.asmx** to  **http://rr.office.microsoft.com/Research/query.asmx**
    4. Restart the Word 2010.

    THANK GOD - EdmundWang - ChivalryW - and anyone else who came up with this solution or was kind enough to pass it on !!!

    I first noticed my problem when Outlook 2010 would NOT give definitions anymore. Normally, I would right click on a word in an email and the definition would appear on the right side of the program. However, for whatever reason, one day the window started appearing as if the definition was about to be generated, but it would remain blank/empty. No definition.

    Then, I went to Word 2010 and started to use the dictionary there, only to receive this annoying popup window -> "Windows Security - office.microsoft.com". And, the dictionary also stopped working in that program. It seemed to me that the 2 problems were related.

    I searched and search the internet. I tried various "solutions", none of which worked. Then, I came across the above registry modification and - VOILA!!! - the "Windows Security" window disappeared in Word and the dictionary again worked. Even the Outlook dictionary again works!!!

    I looked in my Installed Updates log and see that there were 32 updates for Office 2010 on July 09, including an SP2. I think that's about when I started having problems. Someone posted that MS came out with an update to fix this problem. Well, I don't see any update to Office since July 09, 2014. And, when I just did a "check for updates", it reported that there were NO updates - I am already up to date.

    Thanks to all who created the solution and to those who posted it in the forums. I wish MS was as quick, efficient and knowledgeable as whoever came up with this solution.

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