I have a home network with a Dell Dimension desktop and a Gateway laptop. I have two HP printers; a CP1160 and a Photosmart 8150. Both are hooked to the Dell. The Dell runs ME and the Gateway runs XP Professional.

The Gateway has a problem with WORD/HP driver conflicts. The problem is an intermittent one but when it occurs, it persists until we finally give up and close down the computer. Rebooting does not seem to clear the problem.

When you respond to an email, Outlook uses WORD as the word processor. Often, as you type a response, an error message pops-up that says WORD has encountered a problem and must shutdown. WORD does an auto save then shuts down. I have sent the error message to Microsoft several times. Early on, their response was that it was an HP print driver conflict and suggested updating the drivers. I did this but the problem continued. Next, MS suggested uninstalling the drivers and re-installing them. This I did but again this did not fix the problem. (Of course, during this process, I found that HP no longer supports the CP1160 because it’s too old and the 8150 driver download from HP would not self-extract so I had to use the original CD that came with the printer.) After doing all this, the problem still existed. Finally, I uninstalled all HP print drivers on the Gateway and things seemed to work fine.

Working without printer drivers was not acceptable, so I again loaded the 8150 print driver on the Gateway. The problem came back. However, now when I send the error report to MS, they tell me the problem is with WORD 2002 and since they have dropped support for it, they suggest that I upgrade to WORD 2007!!!

Needless to say, my wife and I are frustrated with the whole problem I’ve been battling it for 3 or 4 months now, all to no avail. We need help.

Moderator Edit: Moved topic to more appropriate forum. ~ Animal

Have you tried to download and use Open Office 2.0? This program can read modify and save to almost any MS Office application, from version 4.5 to current.
This is a work-a-round for know, although i will keep looking for a solution.
Have you tried re-installing Word 2000 on both of your computers?
Have you checked the Event Viewer in the Administrative Tools under Control Panel? Look for error messages related to word or HP.

Since my earlier post, I've downloaded and used MS's Clean/Uninstall utility to remove MS Office 2002 and re-installed from my Office 2002 CD then updated Office from the MS web site. (17 updates).

Sooo, I've performed clean remove/installs of both the printer drivers and Office (Word). The problem continues intermittently.

Some six months ago, with a McAfee virus program, I could not get it to uninstall using the "Add/Delete Program" utility on the Control Panel. McAfee had a manual procedure that allowed me to edit the registry to eliminate lingering McAfee files to totally remove them (or never call on them).

I am wondering if the earlier attempts to remove both Word and HP print drivers left behind files called by the registry which never got changed by my re-install actions?

Go to START run and type eventvwr and post any of the redcrosses yu see..

You can also do the following :

First back up your registry PLease look at this guide How to back up your registry prior to doing so

Secondly download install and update Ccleaner
After installing and updating go to options - advanced and tick prompt for registry back ups
Now Start up in safe mode
Do two runs

1) Click on problems and tick all. Click on analyse. At the end you will be prompted for storing a backup.
This will be stored, as a default, in My documents.
2) Click on cleaner click on analyse and accept all files to be removed.

Reboot and see if the problem persists.

On the chance you have damaged system files run sfc /scannow from the Run box in the Start menu.
Be sure to have you XP cd handy, you may need it if sfc fines problems.