Word XP error 1907: Cannot register font ...

[Philphollower]

This is Office XP Small Businesss, running on Windoze XP Home. I ran Norton's WinDoctor from the CD (not from an install, so no Repair History to reverse the problem), and it changed my XP settings so that all the Word document icons are now WordPad icons -- and whenever I start Word, whether directly from the Word icon or from a Word document icon, the program goes immediately to MS-Word Setup, and soon I get "error 1907: could not register font . Verify that you have sufficient permissions to install fonts, and that the system supports this font. Cancel, Retry, Ignore" Retry and Ignore loop back to the same dialogue box. Cancel goes to "Are you sure?" Yes goes to "Word 10.0: an error occurred and this feature is no longer functioning properly. Please run Setup and select "Repair..."to restore this application." However, OK starts Word anyway, though I have to name the documents every time I want to save and exit. Still show up as WordPad icons, too, though still calls up MS-Word instead.

MS-Office on my machine is OEM installed on the HD as a promotional bonus feature by the dealer, so no CD's available. Detect and Repair wants CD's to do its job. Can't do a re-install without the CD's ... illegal (breaks EULA) to borrow someone else's CD's to do this, right?

Trying to change the icon on the documents, and re-assigning the "Open with ..." to MS Word doesn't change the icon, though Word will go into its setup mode gyrations as described. The WordPad icon doesn't call up WordPad.

Surely this is a simple registry error that can be corrected?

Thanks!

[rjz]

Have you tried system restore or even a manual registry restore? Have you also tried to reinstall ms office after cleaning it out?

[Philphollower]

Have you tried system restore or even a manual registry restore? Have you also tried to reinstall ms office after cleaning it out?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, but System Restore didn't want to create a restore point before the incident -- I had it running, but it wasn't running properly and won't restore to any point before the incident -- in fact, even though I've got the System feature configured to run Restore, at this point the SR program screen doesn't even come up.

I could still try a manual registry restore, depending on how far back Windoze keeps it. If I made any other changes along the way, I imagine that these would be eliminated with a registry restore, right? Where would I find backup registry files, and how would I configure Windoze to call up the restored registry, instead of the corrupted one? Is it as simple as changing the prefix of the files from .bak to .exe or .dat?

There are numerous "Ntuninstall ..." hidden subdirectoriesin my Windoze directory, many of which appear to have occurred over the past few months as I received Windoze updates, etc. Some seem to have occurred about the time of the incident that prompted this whole mess ... but I don't know how to activate them so as to restore the system. If they're System Restore directories, it's kinda weird that the program won't work to allow me to restore them ...

Don't have the CD for Office -- it was pre-installed on the HD as a promotional feature by the dealer who sold the computer ... that's the heart of the problem, of course. If I can find one, I'm sorely tempted to clear the HD and start all over. But I guess borrowing one from a friend just to restore the broken pieces of my existing program would violate his EULA, right?

Thanks for the reply.

Edited July 6, 2005 by Philphollower

[rjz]

yes and no

Did the dealer give you a hidden partition? The dealer must legally give you all the cd's or an image.

[Philphollower]

The computer was given to me in toto as a gift from a relative in Ontario, after she'd used it for a couple of years -- there's an image on the bottom of it for Windoze XP -- but I don't see a separate one for Office XP. I was told by a local dealer that with the image for Windoze they can (for a fee) clear the HD and re-install Windoze -- but that unless I had a separate sticker for Office, well, I'd have to buy the whole Office XP program. No Office XP CD's ever given by the dealer to the original owner. The serial numbers for both Windoze and Office have OEM in the middle of them ...

But I have Compaq's Restore CD's -- which I'm told (by Compaq) have Windoze and their specific Compaq software on them -- but not Office. So ... I'm considering clearing the HD, restoring Windoze, and installing Office 2000, which I do have on CD. Just hate going backwards when perhaps with a few Registry tweaks I could get the XP program back ...

I did take your advice on one matter: I ran Registry Mechanic and came up with a list of "deep registry errors" referring to fonts -- many! So though the freeware RM wouldn't repair it, I went in manually with RegEdit and cleared it up. This did help, and I'm not getting the original error 1907 anymore. That's the good news.

The bad news is that now when I click on any Office application, e.g. Outlook or Word, I immediately get setup screens looking for the program CD's! I find that if I keep hitting "cancel" enough times, I can get the programs to run -- somewhat. I can open documents from within Word, but still no correction re the document icons: Word and RTF documents still show a WordPad icon, despite the Properties setting to "open with Word."

If Word is already running, clicking on a WordPad icon will bring up the document in Word, but without the proper document name: "Document 2," etc. The document has to be saved-as to its proper name. If Word isn't running, clicking on a WordPad icon won't bring up anything.

Does this kind of error put us into more familiar territory? Seems like something has shunted "opening" the programs into "install" mode.

Thanks again for the replies.