Member Avatar for whiskeyjar2005

When I click on the paper clip to attach a file and click the drop-down arrow to browse to a different location, the application stops responding and eventually closes. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing Office. Any ideas? I am running Office 2003 on Windows XP.

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As reported by , Office 2003 apps (Outlook/Word/Excel) freeze when the file-browse dropdown is used and a reinstall did not help. ’s suggestion about networked folders is a common and useful lead: the common Open/Save dialog queries drives, network shares and printers and will block if any of those resources are slow or unreachable. Reinstalling Office rarely fixes problems that originate in the shell or OS layer.

Quick isolation steps: start the affected apps in safe mode to disable add-ins and see whether the dialog still hangs.

outlook.exe /safe
winword.exe /safe
excel.exe /safe

If safe mode avoids the crash, disable non-Microsoft COM/add-ins via the app’s Add-Ins dialog. Also try the same browse action from Windows Explorer; a hang there points to a system/shell issue rather than Office itself.

Focus checks likely to find the culprit: list and remove stale network mappings with

net use

disconnect unreachable shares, and remove dead entries from My Network Places. Temporarily change the default printer to a local/generic driver to rule out printer-driver enumeration delays. Use a shell-extension manager (ShellExView or Autoruns) to disable third-party context-menu or namespace extensions (archive tools, version-control, AV hooks), reboot, and retest.

If the problem persists, inspect the Application log in Event Viewer (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer) for crash details (faulting module/exception). Ensure Windows and Office have the latest service packs and hotfixes, and try a clean boot or a new Windows user profile to isolate user-specific settings. These steps resolve most cases where the common file dialog causes Office 2003 to hang.

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Member Avatar for whiskeyjar2005

This also happens when I am in Word or excel and attempt to save a file via "save as" and click on the drop-down menu to browse to a different location other than the default. The application freezes up and exits. I have ensured that there are no viruses or spyware/adware running on my computer.

Member Avatar for Zachery

Do you have alot of networked folders?

I've noticed a slight pause while 2003 tries to gather data for my "My Computer" location (networked drives few CD/DVD drives).

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