All of a sudden tonight, I am unable to open Word or any Word docs. When I try to open one, the system hangs up, can't even get out of it with Ctrl-Alt-Del. The only way out is to shut down. I get a warning that the system resources are dangerously low, even though the resourse meter says I have over 80% memory available. After reading some previous posts here, I ran InoculateIT, then I ran housecall.antivirus; neither found anything. Then I downloaded AdAware and ran that; it found a few minor things, which I got rid of. But Word still won't work. This is bad because I do my work reports with Word. I could uninstall and reinstall it - would that be a good idea? jimi-l or anyone please help, and thank you in advance! I am running ME, emachine 466i, 256MB ram, 20 GB harddrive. Everything else seems to work fine. Suzi

Suzi, You said about uninstalling and reinstalling that is where I would start(might have been corupted like my spelling is) :-) STAR

Have you tried a system restore? That is where I would start. If that wont help the next step I would try is to look here>> http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q87/8/56.ASP I know its for 97 but the techniques are the same I'm sure. Will it create and re-open NEW documents? How about a document you didn't create,will it open them? Does it seem to be all documents or only ones with a ".doc" extension? jimi_l

Suzi, after you do that your Word program and work probably uses a lot of resources when you are using that turn off your zone alarm and virus protection, there is a program called StartStop, its good can give you info if you want, I keep my resources real high because I have nothing running un-necessarly at start up, even my Internet access icon My Works pulls alot and my Photoshop so if I work in those programs I am ready when I turn on my machine, and when I go online I just click my zone alarm and my internet access don't even turn on my virus, till I do my weekly update and scan, I send all my mail thru hotmail, so it is scaned thru them and when I do read my mail I sometimes turn it on otherwise I don't. I only have 128 MB and 166 MHZ, have MSN Works, Photoshop 6, PhotoDeluxe, and System Mechanic (all use alot of resources but only use one at a time, I am never under75-70 %, you may want to try it, especially with your work. Sue

Suzi If above doesn't solve it Search your "c:\ drive for the following admin.dll----don't want ANY these riched20.dll--more than ONE of these (it could be corrupt) readme.exe----don't want ANY of these Post back if ANY yes's above..NIMDA If no admin...only (1)riched20.dll and no readme.exe I would use msconfig and extract new riched20.dll from Word CD..rename old riched20.dl_ first. Might be other things but try this before reinstall.. Good Luck Terry

Terry - I searched for those and found only one riched20.dll, neither of the others. I'm not clear about extracting as you described, can you give more details? Thanks. I haven't had time to try the other things yet.

Suzi, I have the same exact problem. I am on Windows Me with a Pentium4 (1500) and about 40 gigs free hard drive. I have at least 128 Ram but I get the same darn message about dangerously low resources. I have been running Norton Anti-virus with no virus found. I tried reinstalling windows with all the little frills like directx etc. I am clueless at this point. Please let me know if you figure it out. I also use my pc for work reports. I wonder if an uninstall and a reinstall will erase all my word files?