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Microsoft Word Always Opens on Safe Mode all the time; how to turn this off?

Shamyog Tamang 0 Reputation points
2024-03-11T15:04:04.5633333+00:00

Hello,

Recently in our company, one of the users reported that Microsoft Word automatically opens in Safe mode; We did all the below troubleshooting but the issue still remains:

Fully uninstalled the O365 apps from the computer using the Microsoft Sara Tool and re-installed the Office apps Renamed the Normal.dotm Cleared the Word profile from the %appdata% Removed all the add-ins from the Word application

We also replaced the laptop but it occurs on the new laptop too. Not sure if the Word startup mode is configured to Safe Mode somewhere in her O365 Profile but I am unable to find out.

My hands are out of scope which is why I am posting this questions here to see if I can get some help to resolve the issue.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

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5 answers

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  1. Steve Gershman 15 Reputation points
    2024-04-15T23:10:46.1566667+00:00

    Closing Word, deleting the key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word in the registry will resolve the issue. Still not clear on what exactly is causing the issue, need to spend some more time on this, but that will get around the issue immediately.

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  2. Stefan Blom 340.1K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2024-03-11T20:09:43.4966667+00:00

    Does Word force Safe mode or does the program suggest Safe mode on startup?

    If it is a suggestion, what happens if the user says no?

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  3. Gerard Legeant 5 Reputation points
    2026-02-23T02:32:22.3633333+00:00

    I had the same issue. However, I found out that I had an addin for an expitred product which was preventing WORD from staring up properly. I disable the add via Go COM option in Add-ins, and it resolved my issue.

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  5. Jiajing Hua 18,175 Reputation points Moderator
    2024-03-12T08:30:26.1433333+00:00

    Hi,

    Please check whether a clean boot in Windows is helpful.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd


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