word and wordpad crash instantly.. please help :(

[Mike521]

Hey all, need help big time..

For the longest time, wordpad and MS word (all versions -- 97, xp, and 2003) crash almost instantly after startup. If I start typing quickly, the crash holds off until I stop typing. I have no idea why it happens, the only message I get is the generic "encountered an error and must quit" etc..

I'm thinking perhaps there is a service or something that word relies on to run, that I have disabled.. but I looked through the list and there's only a couple things disabled and I don't think they're related anyway..

if someone has encountered this before and figured out how to fix it, that'd be awesome!

I'm using WinXP Pro by the way

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Try reloading the program from Office.



Skip,

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884

 

[Mike521]

Did that multiple times.. remember it does it for word 97, word xp, and word 2003..

Here's some additional info:

to my surprise, it ran perfectly in safe mode (I thought I'd tried that months ago with no success).

Here's the report I see when I go to event viewer\Application:

The source is Microsoft Office, no Category, and event is 1000

Faulting application winword.exe, version 11.0.6113.0, stamp 40077019, faulting module hpzntp04.dll, version 2.80.0.0, stamp 3ba7d3f7, debug? 0, fault address 0x0001fdc3.

There are dozens of these, all are identical. Then there's one where the source is "Application Error":

Faulting application wordpad.exe, version 5.1.2600.1106, faulting module hpzntp04.dll, version 2.80.0.0, fault address 0x0001fdc3.

Then there's some hex numbers, etc..

I don't think I have anything particularly conflict prone running. Mcafee virusscan, zone alarm firewall, and nvidia motherboard and video card drivers / software..

I suppose the next step is to start up in normal mode, and one by one, kill all running user processes, then kill system processes, till I find the one that's conflicting with word, right? Any better way to narrow it down?

Thanks so much for the help

 

[troutfisher333]

Try uninstalling the printer driver and reinstalling it. I had a similar situation and this cured it.