Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   I know, Microsoft Office 2007 is OLD. I still have the disks for Office 2003! Other than an issue with the sort window growing if you use large fonts, it still worked great -- until this past month! It's still usable, but the bug I found is annoying!

   I guess I'm unusual - at least from Microsoft's point of view - I HATE default installs that use Program Files and Program Files (x86). In both cases, especially the 32 bit location, that folder can get incredibly cluttered and messy incredibly fast if you just use default installs. As a general rule, if possible, another location is used. Specifically, my husband and I use C:\Products in 4 sub-areas: Basic, Games, General, and Hobbies (a few cross-stitch products).

   We have installed Microsoft Office 2007 in C:\Products\General. As there was an option to install other than the default, we never thought it would ever cause a problem! It seems to have done so since the security updates last month (March, 2017).

   We noticed today that the helps (F1) don't work right. You bring it up - fine. You select a topic - fine. You select an individual item - problem! You get an error message about the format and you see html code. The error message says to click it for options. One of the options is to "Show Restricted Content". If you use that and click "Open", you can see the help correctly. It doesn't pay to say "save" because it just saves that one individual help item!

   It's possible to see the helps but it takes 3 extra mouse clicks to do it.

   However, that is only a problem if you install the product elsewhere. On the Windows 8.1 laptop, we (for some reason) installed Office 2007 in the default location. The helps work properly there. It's only on the 7 desktop that there's a problem.

   The difference (other than the OS) is the install location.

   Does anybody have any idea of what I can do to get it to work right again on Windows 7? I don't use help that often but I do some and, for me, it's usually Excel. I've googled and everything they say fails. I've seen the exact same issue with Office 2010, even with a new install on Windows 10. I wonder if that person didn't use the install location choice feature!

   Help!

   Posted 7 years ago #
2. 

   ChrisS
   Administrator

   My help files reside in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office\1033".

   I'd first check to see if you have the "correct" directory. If you do then I'd compare it to the "1033" directory under your "C:\Products\General" tree. Maybe the "correct" directory got updated and yours didn't? If you don't have the directory then make it and copy the contents of your "1033" directory and see if that fixes the problem.

   Unfortunately, you may need re-install Office and the 8 billion updates.

   FWIW - I've found that F1 and the "?" sometimes do different things. Maybe you should try the "?" and see if that helps the help.

   Posted 7 years ago #
3. 

   ChrisS
   Administrator

   It occurred to me that it would be better to attempt a "repair install" before you did a full re-installation. That might, or might not, preserve the updates. Assuming that you haven't already attempted a repair in the other attempts to resolve the problem.

   Posted 7 years ago #
4. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   From what you say, maybe I can copy from the "correct" install try of the 1033 folder from the laptop to the older machine -- making sure I "preserve" the current folder -- or just comparing the contents.

   Since the product is 10 years old and this install is over 4 years old, I'm not sure a re-install will work that well, repair or otherwise.

   As it is, the problem is "livable".

   I have compared and the issue is with either the question mark or F1. We have found that if we let it look online for the helps, it will show the error and then flicker and show the correct form. That says there's a pointer wrong locally.

   Thanks for your help -- you were already more help than Google or the Microsoft Community. The only help I got from the MS Community was to not use F1 -- use Google instead. Say what????? That assumes you will ALWAYS have an instant connection and will ALWAYS get what you want on the first try. Computers don't work THAT cleanly!

   Posted 7 years ago #
5. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Wow, 7 updates for Ofc 2007 on 3/14(!). I expected when I checked that I might see something re: Internet Explorer -- the difference between ie on 7 & 8 I thought **might** have something to do with the different behavior -- but 7 updates, figuring Microsoft's sloppiness with their updates lately, that's asking for problems.

   Posted 7 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.