Repairing Office XP

Each program (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and so on) consists of several files with cryptic file extensions, such as .EXE, .DLL, and .OLB. If you accidentally delete or modify one of these files, your Microsoft Office XP program may no longer work.

To protect you from this problem, Microsoft Office XP contains a special Detect and Repair command that — what else? — checks to make sure that all those important files still exist on your hard disk and are in working order.

Of course, the big problem is that if a file is missing or corrupted, you may not be able to run any Microsoft Office XP programs in the first place in order to use the Detect and Repair command. In that case, you may have to go back to reinstalling the entire program all over again. Be sure to make backups of your important data just in case the installation procedure goes awry and messes up your hard disk completely.

So, the next time any Office XP program starts acting flaky, try to fix it by using the Detect and Repair command:

1. Run a Microsoft Office XP program, such as Word or PowerPoint.

2. Choose Help-->Detect and Repair. (You may have to click the double rightward-pointing arrow in the Help menu before you can see the Detect and Repair command.)

The Detect and Repair dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Detect and Repair dialog box can help fix most problems you may have with Office XP.

3. Click the check boxes to choose any options you want.

The two options for repairing Microsoft Office include the following:

Restore my shortcuts while repairing: Makes sure any desktop shortcuts you may create continue pointing to the right programs and documents.

Discard my customized settings and restore default settings: Returns your copy of Office XP back to its original settings, wiping out any custom changes you may make to menus or toolbars.

4. Click Start.

Follow the on-screen instructions as Microsoft Office XP valiantly tries to fix itself if it detects any problems. You may have to insert the Microsoft Office XP CD into your CD-ROM drive.