Document Gets "Protected" When Adding Captions in Word 2016 (or 2007)

Question

I am using Word 2016 to create a document including many photographs but had this same problem with Word 2007 before recently upgrading...

I am adding captions for most of the  photographs in the document. About 10% to 15% of the time after I click "OK" inside the caption dialog, instead of placing a caption below the current photo, the caption dialog closes and for some reason, the document goes into non-editable "protected" mode. I am generally able to get the document editable again, but in some small percentage of cases, Word simply crashes and restarts, discarding all changes since my last save (though I do save often).

Idea what might be causing this behavior? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

DH

Answer 1

Use the removal tool from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/971179. It shouldn't need the CD.

Answer 2

When I try to unstall Office 2007 from Control Panel it tells me that the installation is corrupted, and that I need to re-rerun the installation from the original CD, which I no longer have.

Answer 3

There are a couple of different issues here.

The one I'd address first is this: If you enter the winword command and Office 2007 starts to install, then Office 2007 (or at least some part of it) is still on your computer. Unless you have some reason to keep both 2007 and 2016 side by side, you should completely uninstall Office 2007. First uninstall it from Programs & Features in the Windows Control Panel. Then try the winword command again. If it still tries to install Office 2007, download and use the tool from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/971179 (be sure to get the right one for Office 2007 on Windows 10).

When you've removed Office 2007, repair the Office 2016 installation according to the instructions in this article. Try adding captions for a while.

If the problem is still present, you can try safe mode -- instead of the winword command method, you can hold down the Ctrl key while you click the Word 2016 icon on the Start menu. What that does is to suppress the loading of all add-ins, the Normal.dotm template, and customizations that are stored in the registry. If the problem doesn't occur in safe mode, the implication is that one of those three classes includes the source of the problem. In that case, use the troubleshooting steps in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541 -- but leave the registry changes (steps 3 and 4) until after you've tried all the other steps without success.

Answer 4

When I run this command, I get a popup dialog saying "Preparing to install Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007". I am running Office 2016! Anyway, if I am eventually able to open Word 2016 in safe mode, what do I do then? What do I look for that will help me to address this specific issue?

Answer 5

Hi,

Try to open Word in application safe mode and check.

To open Word in application safe mode: From ‘Start’ screen > type ‘winword /safe' (Without the quotes and note the space in the command)

Refer this link: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Open-Office-apps-in-safe-mode-on-a-Windows-PC-dedf944a-5f4b-4afb-a453-528af4f7ac72

If you have any other queries related to Office products, feel free to reply and I'll be happy to further assist you.