IT Queries: Computer problems answered

When I open an email in Outlook, I find there’s a big red cross where images should be. How do I show the images?

Warning: This solution involves editing the Windows registry. Doing this incorrectly can damage your system. If you are not an experienced computer user, call for a computer technician.

First backup your important data and then restart your computer. Do not open Outlook.

Once your computer is running, open the registry editor by clicking Start, Run (or Find in Vista) and type regedit and click okay.

Go down the list on the left hand side of the Registry Editor screen to HKEY_CURRENT_USER click the plus on the left of the key to expand it and click the plus next to Software.

Continue down the tree by clicking the plus next to Microsoft then Office then 11.0, Outlook, Security and finally highlight OutlookSecureTempFolder.

On the right hand side of the screen you will see  %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK3D\ . Note the %USERPROFILE% may be the user’s name instead.

Highlight and delete %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK3D\

Close the Registry Editor, reboot your computer and Outlook 2003 should work fine.

I cannot open pps files. message says to “create file association”. I go to folder options & click file types……..but what on earth do i do from there?

First, do you have Microsoft Powerpoint installed? PPS files are Powerpoint presentations and the program isn’t included all versions of Microsoft Office.

If you don’t have Microsoft Office or your version doesn’t include Powerpoint then you’ll have to install the Powerpoint Viewer which is a free download from Microsoft.

The Powerpoint viewer will allow you to read and print presentations but you won’t be able to edit them.

If you have a copy of Office which includes Powerpoint then you’ll need to repair the installation of Office.

If the problem continues, follow our instructions on creating a file association you’ll need to go down the list and select Powerpoint or Powerpoint viewer.

For about a week or so whenever I use the help in MS Office 2007 applications the normal help dialog box appears but when clicking on the Topic it brings up a File Download box and asks me if I want to “open or save the file”.

I click open it display it in my Firefox browser.   How do I get it to open in the help box (other progs such as Windows & MS Works display OK, it is only in Office there is a problem)

I have tried Repair Office and I’m running Windows XP.

The problem is Firefox is set as the default browser for web files. You’ll need to change the association.

To do this, follow our instructions on  our “I can’t open my files” answer. Choose Internet Explorer as the program.

When I send a Word Document, as an attachment, the recipient is unable to read it – it consists of a multitude of incomprehensible symbols.

The first thing to check is that the recipient has Micorosoft Word. It they don’t they should download the Word Viewer from Microsoft.

It’s also possible they have a older version of Word than you. In this case they should download and install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. This will allow them to open newer versions.

If you’re still stuck, check our previous post on a similar problem with the instructions on how to change Word’s file formats.

Finally, your recipient may have messed up their file associations so the wrong program is trying to open the document. We’ve covered fixing that previously.

I’m a pensioner just coming to learn PCs. I’ve enrolled in a computers for seniors course and require microsoft office. Too expensive is opal a viable alternative?

We’re not aware of an Opal Office package. However an web search shows there has been an outfit repackaging the free Open Office suite and selling it under the name “Opal”.

While this is strictly speaking not illegal, we don’t see where there’s any value in paying for the Opal Office when you can download the identical Open Office for free.

There are a number of free online Office alternatives such as Google Docs, Think Free and Zoho. These require an Internet connection to use.

If you want to pay there are some cheap alternatives as well. 602 Office is popular and WordPerfect suite is still available for less than MS Office.

Keep in mind that not having Office may be a problem when you do the course as the materials and lessons will be based on Office and the presenter will assume everyone is using the same package.

You may want to consider using Microsoft’s free 60 day trial of Office while you do the course. Also keep in mind Microsoft offer a cheaper version of Office for students and households.

My sister has Windows XP and MS Office2003. With some Word documents when she goes to Print Preview she gets a blank page,no writing of the document saved, and receives a blank page when printed. Excel docs and emails can be printed.

We have tried System restore, and have reinstalled Office 2003. What needs to be unchecked or what can be done to enable the print preview to show the document wording?

It’s almost a certainly a printer driver problem. The best solution is to make sure Office is fully installed, then download the latest printer drivers, fully uninstall the printer, reboot and then reinstall the printer with the new software.

Microsoft have a full troubleshooting guide for Word on their website.

I have the new version of Microsoft Office and people are telling me I can’t read what I send them.

Office 2007 has a range of new formats; Word 2007 saves documents in the docx format which is incompatible with the older doc formats.

The best solution when you are sharing files is to save files to the lowest level everyone can read. In Office 2007 you can set the file format by clicking the Office button (the big round button in the top left corner, click the Word Options button, click the Save tab.

Under Save Documents, click the drop-down arrow in the Save Files In This Format box and select Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc) the click OK.

Repeat this for Microsoft Excel.

One downside with this feature is that you will lose some Office 2007 features by saving to the 97-2003 format.

Office 2007 is going to become more common as will this problem. So we’d strongly recommend your friends and colleagues install the Office Compatibility Pack so they won’t get this problem in future.

I have lost all my clip art pictures on my computer. Is this a matter of deleting then re-installing Microsoft Office or is there a much easier way than this. Many thanks.

You don’t need to uninstall and reinstall, open the Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs, or Programs in Windows Vista, and select Microsoft Office.

To right of the selection there are two buttons; change and remove. Click the Change button.

In the Microsoft Office setup screen select Add or Remove Features. Depending upon the version of Office you’ll either be presented with a list of features or a screen with tick boxes for each of the main components of Office.

If it’s the latter, click the choose advanced customization of applications and the features list will appear.

The clip art appears under the Office Shared Features heading. On some versions of Office the clip art itself appears under Clip Organizer. Click the Clip Organizer or Clip Art and select Run All From My Computer.

At this point you will need your Microsoft Office Disk. Insert it when prompted and install the clipart. You can also access clip art online from Microsoft as well as download clip art from third parties or buy it on disk.

Microsoft Word disappeared from computer & so no word files would open. Had Office 2000 premium installed but original disk packed in storage shed. Uninstalled premium and installed professional (loan from friend),although it says it has installed on hard drive it keeps asking for cd rom and even if I put the cd in I am told no program is responding.

What’s almost certainly happened is a Word add-in has caused this problem. The best thing to do is to start Microsoft Word in Safe Mode.

To do this, click Start then Run and type winword /a note there is a space before the /a. This will start Word without any macros or add-ins.

You may still be asked to insert the installation disk and you should do so to finish the process.

To disable add-ins, while in Word click the Tools menu, select Template and Addins. In the COM Add-Ins dialog box, the add-ins that are available (loaded) in Microsoft Word are listed.

To turn off a COM add-in, click to clear the COM Add-In check box, and then click OK. When you restart Microsoft Word, Word will start without loading the add-in.

Should the problem continue, you may have something autoloading with Word. Click Start, Run and type “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup”, you should include the quotation marks.  Move anything in this folder to another location.

We’d strongly urge you to find your own disks as you’re currently in breach of the Office license and could be accused of software piracy.

When you do find those disks, uninstall all versions of Office before reinstalling yours.

My MYOB accounting program is crashing when I try to export a document such as a pay advice in Microsoft Word. I’m running MYOB 17 and Office 2007 Ultimate edition.

The problem is Microsoft Groove, part of the Office 2007 Ultimate package. You’ll need to uninstall Groove for MYOB to work properly with Office applications.

In Windows XP click Start, Control Panel and Add/Remove Programs. In Vista click the Start button, Control Panel and Programs and Features.

Select Microsoft Office 2007  from the list of programs and choose Change and Add/Remove features, scroll down the list of features and change Groove to “Not Available”. Follow the wizard for the next steps. You may be asked to reboot at the end.

On rebooting, MYOB should be fine.