Microsoft Office Errors

Microsoft Office errors boil down to one possibility: Your Windows registry is having problems. In fact, your problems may not be limited to Microsoft Office. Your computer may be running slower than it used to and other programs may be having errors. Here is what you’re looking at.

What the Microsoft Windows Registry Is

The Microsoft Windows registry is where all the files that make programs run are kept. It’s like a filing cabinet, and if you don’t keep up with maintenance, it can become a huge mess. It can become full of useless files and damaged ones. While which problem you’re having isn’t certain at this point, the way to fix it is the same.

You have to do routine registry maintenance; otherwise, your problems will get worse. Your computer will keep getting slower and you’ll have more program errors. Eventually, you’ll see the ultimate error message—the Blue Screen of Doom. This means that the most essential files to make Windows itself are in trouble.

2 Ways to Do Registry Maintenance

Registry maintenance used to be a highly technical, time consuming and dangerous event. Most people merely replaced their computers or sent them to technicians. Either way, no normal user knew what to do to fix their problems. Even if they did, they wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.

1. The reason for this is that it meant spending about a week browsing through a gazillion folders, looking at files with strange names. If you found a bad file, you had to delete it or fix it. The problem, of course, is that you had to know that it was a bad file, because if it was a good file, you only made your problems worse.

2. These days, you have automatic registry maintenance programs that handle this nightmare in about five minutes. There are some free ones out there, but you’ll mostly find trial versions. They’ll find all the problems well enough, but they won’t fix them all unless you buy them. Ultimately, you’ll want to buy one rather than using a free version because, well, you get what you pay for.

Reinstalling Windows—Not a Good Technique

Many people are under the impression that reinstalling Windows is the way to go to fix registry problems. The reality of the situation is that 99% of the time, you don’t have to do this. There are much easier and faster ways to fix your problems.

While it only takes a couple of hours to reinstall Windows, unless you backup your files, you’ll lose everything. Backing up your computer can be an all day event and it will take several CD-ROMs to do it. Compared to the five minutes you would spend with a good registry cleaner, it doesn’t make much sense to reinstall Windows.

In the final analysis, when you have Microsoft Office errors, the best thing to do is find a good registry cleaning program and run it. Not only will you stop having these errors, but your computer will be running like new once you’re done.