cannot save word files after 1809 update

Question

my computer has just updated to 1809. now it seems i cannot save any files in Word. i am using Word 2013...

Any ideas what i can do?

Thanks

Answer 1

FYI, multiple users in our organization have also reported this issue after upgrading to Windows 10 1809. Rollback seems to fix it.

Happening across multiple versions/channels/architectures of Office (2013, 365 / Monthly, Insider / x86, x64).

Opened a support case with Microsoft, they are aware of the issue.

As bad as this bug is, thank goodness it's not just me who is experiencing it! It is indeed present on Microsoft Office 2013, 2016 and 2019 and nothing seems to fix it.

If Microsoft are aware of the issue, then they should release an update as soon as possible. I've been able to circumvent the problem by copy/pasting entire Word documents into Google Docs, then downloading them back as finished .docx files. This is very tedious to do, however, so I am hoping they will get to the bottom of it sooner rather than later!

Answer 2

FYI, multiple users in our organization have also reported this issue after upgrading to Windows 10 1809. Rollback seems to fix it.

Happening across multiple versions/channels/architectures of Office (2013, 365 / Monthly, Insider / x86, x64).

Opened a support case with Microsoft, they are aware of the issue.

Answer 3

My only suggestion is to roll back to version 1803. And then block 1809.

Have you also encountered this bug, by any chance? Here are some other things I have tried in the meantime:

 - Give "Full Control" permissions to my disk partitions (unsuccessful)

 - Set "WINWORD.exe" to always "Run as administrator" (unsuccessful)

 - Give "WINWORD.exe" full control permissions (unsuccessful)

 - Run sfc /scannow to repair any corrupt Windows files (unsuccessful)

 - Delete the contents of the Templates folder (%appdata%\Microsoft) and let Word regenerate them from scratch (unsuccessful)

That last point actually showed me something interesting: after the 1809 update, Word CANNOT regenerate "Normal.dotm" if deleted, nor any of the other files within the "Templates" folder for that matter.

This results in an application hang whenever trying to close Word. Trying to click the close button (i.e. "X") again gives the following prompt:

"Changes have been made that affect the global template, Normal. Do you want to save those changes?"

Clicking "Save" only results in the application resuming its hanging and only by clicking "Don't Save" can I get it to finally close.

Does anyone have any other idea of what might trigger this insidious bug, especially considering that Word is the only program within the Microsoft Office suite that exhibits this issue? Thanks!

Answer 4

Just wanted to say that I, too, am suffering from this dreadful issue, which started occurring only after I updated my machine to Windows 10 version 1809 earlier today.

Symptoms:

 - All other Microsoft Office programs appear to be running fine, just like before, except for Word (2016 and 2019, doesn't matter which version)

 - I can open any Word document (.doc, .docx, etc.) and edit it without issue, but clicking the "Save" icon does nothing, likewise for "CTRL+S"

 - When trying to choose a save destination folder through "Save as", clicking "Browse" does nothing

 - When closing any Word document, I get the following prompt: "Want to save your changes to "(document name)"? If you click "Don't Save", a recent copy of this document will be temporarily available.", but clicking "Save" does nothing and "Don't Save" simply closes the document without saving it

Already tried:

 - Uninstalling Microsoft Office 2016 and re-installing Microsoft Office 2019 from scratch (no success)

 - Disabling "Controlled folder access" from within Microsoft Defender Security Center (was already turned off by default)

 - Adding WINWORD.exe as a an "Allowed app" through "Controlled folder access"

Is there anything else that can be done about this, since this never happened to me before and it's keeping me from working! :(