Knowledge Base

You receive a "Word was unable to read this document. It may be corrupt" error message when you open a document in Word 2003

Article ID: 889409

Article Last Modified on 4/7/2006

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Office Word 2003

Important This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SYMPTOMS

When you try to use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to open a document that was created in an earlier version of Microsoft Word, the document does not open, and you receive the following error message:

Word was unable to read this document. It may be corrupt.
Try one or more of the following:

Open and Repair the file.
Open the file with the Text Recovery converter.

(C:\Documents and Settings\...\test.doc)

RESOLUTION

This problem was first fixed in a hotfix that is now contained in a service pack. If you installed the latest Office 2003 service pack, you do not have to install the hotfix.

Service pack information

This problem is corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 2.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

870924 How to obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003

After you install the service pack, follow the steps that are listed in the "More Information" section of the article to set the BulletProofOnCorruption registry key and to activate the hotfix.

Hotfix information

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the Word 2003 post-Service Pack 1 Hotfix Package that is dated December 14, 2004. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

890932 Description of the Word 2003 post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package: December 14, 2004

After you install the hotfix, follow the steps that are listed in the "More Information" section to set the BulletProofOnCorruption registry key and to enable the hotfix.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

This problem was first corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 2.

MORE INFORMATION

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To enable this hotfix, follow these steps:

Quit Word 2003.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then click to select the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options
After you select the key that is specified in step 3, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
Type BulletProofOnCorruption, and then press ENTER.
Right-click BulletProofOnCorruption, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

Additional query words: word2003 wd2003

Keywords: kberrmsg kbbug kbfix kbqfe kbopenfile kboffice2003presp2fix kboffice2003sp2fix kbhotfixserver KB889409

Microsoft KB Archive/889409

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