Rogue Software Causing Problems with Word & Default Programs

[Rosaboobie]

Nope, cos I have only just reinstalled my MS Office, Diat, so I missed out on that game, but never mind.

[draclvr]

Pro doesn't get you much of anything that the Free version doesn't already offer. I did pay for it many, many years ago because I wanted to support them. I assume you ran CCleaner on the registry AFTER you had uninstalled Microsoft Office? The point was to get rid of any stray registry entries after uninstalling.

I assume you uninstalled Office 2010 before, but if you didn't, completely uninstall it and then run CCleaner on the registry. That may get rid of any remaining Word registry entries. THEN try reinstalling Office 2010.

If after uninstalling Office, running CCleaner on the registry and then reinstalling office doesn't work, then you are stuck with the options in the link I sent you if you want to restore that option on the desktop.

It does seem like a lot of hassle, but it's aggravating when some piece of rogue software messes things up! Final word here is STAY AWAY from these free downloads! They and "foistware" cause 99% of the computer repairs I do.

[Rosaboobie]

Ermmmmmm - no, I forgot to run CCcleaner after uninstalling lol - Oh darn!

[draclvr]

Oh, well... I don't think it would help anyway!

Have you tried either the 3rd party software or the registry hacks in my link yet?

[Rosaboobie]

Do you mean MenuMaid, Drac? If so, I cant see that you can add an item to the Context Menu, merely remove what you dont want?

[draclvr]

There were 3 programs, but I don't remember what they entailed. Let me go take a look.

Yes, MenuMaid is just for cleaning up the context menu. But look in the part titled Context Menu Editors. There are three of them. I'm not sure any of them will do what you want it to though. If not, then I'm afraid you are stuck with either the registry hack or going back to opening up MS Word and creating a document. You can always save to the desktop location if you want.

I found a lot of other stuff out there, but none of it looked too safe. The link JKEerie provided would be wonderful... unfortunately it is for Office 2003 which is no longer supported by Microsoft. It went out the window with XP.

I'm going to grab this discussion and move it over to the technical help forum.

[JKEerie]

Drac...Do you think a Microsoft Office repair would work through the Control Panel?

[draclvr]

It couldn't hurt... the issue is with the right click context menu and some corruption caused by that rogue program. What I suspect happened is the rogue program inserted itself into the right click context menu to create a new document. When RB uninstalled it, that option was deleted. But I would have thought a fresh install of Office would have done the same thing as the repair option.

This is all part of the shell extension hell many people get frustrated with. Still seems like a lot of aggravation just to get it back though!

[JKEerie]

What about a system restore point to before she downloaded that rogue program?

[draclvr]

Anything is worth a try!

[JKEerie]

I just ran a system restore last week. I had a number of Jacquie Lawson screensavers that just quit working. It turns out that adobe updated their flash player and the new version 20.0.0.267 was incompatible with a number of screensavers (as I found out from a quick internet search), so I just did a system restore and then set the flash player to not update. All fixed. Adobe released a newer version that is now compatible (.270), so I downloaded that one. I think System Restore was one of the better things Microsoft came up with.

[draclvr]

I agree - it's been a lifesaver for me on a couple of computers I've worked on.

[Diat60]

I have NEVER been able to get System Restore to work. It always seems that the only way the computer can find a restore point is if I manually set one each and every day. And, yes, I've been through the settings, etc. but never had any luck. Thankfully it hasn't been needed for ages. Don't you just hate it when a machine tells you "that won't work" (I swear with a smug grin on it's face or monitor). I was going to say an inanimate machine but somehow that description doesn't seem right.

[draclvr]

I get an Internal System Error while doing this merge, but hopefully these will be the missing posts below on System Restore. There were a couple of others, but they were kind of unimportant.

In Windows 10 click on System and Security in the Control Panel and then on System. On the left, click on System Protection. In the next small screen, click on Configure to make sure it is turned on and then move the slider at the bottom to adjust how space you allocate for System Restore points. I use about 2% of my 1 GB drive. Click on Apply and then on OK.

There is a way in Windows 10 to keep all your files and programs and reinstall Windows 10 completely. But that's pretty drastic for this issue and I'm not sure it would help anyway.

[Rosaboobie]

Right, well I suddenly realised yesterday I still had a problem with that rogue software FreeFileViewer. My lawyer sent me a fee note and although I could read it in Google Docs, when I downloaded it and tried to open it, this is what I got. As you can see, it says "Type - FreeFileViewer" and I cant save it!