Whenever an email was being written, Microsoft Word would crash (Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close).

I figure: customer is probably using Word to write emails from Microsoft Outlook.

A quick change of settings and Microsoft Office is working normally.

But when I try to open a word document, I still get a word error, so the problem is not with the email system.

I try opening an Excel spreadsheet, and it opens normally.

OK then, the problem is specific to Word only.

I check the control panel settings, making sure word is the default program to open word documents (it is).

A quick search finds a passing mention that the problem is related to a corrupted normal.dot file.

I’ve seen similar problems in the past, so the first step is to find the folder that has normal.dot.

I quickly find it in:

C:Documents and Settings{username}Application DataMicrosoftTemplates

Note: for Vista and Windows7 (office 2007), the location is more like:

C:users{username}AppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates

(also note that office 2007 uses: normal.dotm)

Anyway, I rename it, and word starts working normally again.