I am having the world of problems with both of these applications. The problem started with Word 97 when I think I received a virus which my virus scanner picked and offered to repair. I clicked yes and since then I have been unable to use Word 97. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling it, but the problem persists even though the program says that it is installed correctly. What happens is that I either create a shortcut or go through ‘Programs’ > ‘Microsoft Word’ and the application starts up and just as it would go to a blank page and it minimises. I click on the task bar of Windows 98 (where it shows I have ‘Document 1′ of Word 97) and it looks like it can maximise but can’t. I got by installing Word 95 and this worked well until the same virus detected/repair problem. I have tried reinstalling this but now encounter the same problem I had with Word 97. I have been told that it may be my path file instructions that need to be manually re-written. I don’t have the foggiest how to do this. Can you help?

As much as I don’t like to say this I think that your only choice now is to reinstall Windows. The reason that Word may not be working is because your virus scanner picked up the virus and when you elected to repair it, the program tampered with a file required for running Word. If you do not want to totally reinstall Windows, the other option would be to upgrade your copy of Word to Word 2000. I would not do this though, because there is no guarantee that it will work and if it doesn’t then you are down a few $100 and still haven’t got a copy of Word that works. If you are not confident doing this, I suggest that you take your computer to a professional technician/consultant and ask them to do it for you (but first I would ask them if they have any other suggestions on how to get Word working).