You receive an error message when you try to open an Office document or start Outlook (835404)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office Word 2003
  • Microsoft Office Excel 2003
  • Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
  • Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
  • Microsoft Office Publisher 2003
  • Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003
  • Microsoft Office Access 2003
  • Microsoft Office XP
  • Microsoft Excel 2002
  • Microsoft Outlook 2002
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
  • Microsoft Publisher 2002
  • Microsoft Word 2002
  • Microsoft Office 2000
  • Microsoft Excel 2000
  • Microsoft Outlook 2000
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2000
  • Microsoft Publisher 2000
  • Microsoft Word 2000
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Warning This workaround may make your computer or your network more vulnerable to attack by malicious users or by malicious software such as viruses. We do not recommend this workaround but are providing this information so that you can implement this workaround at your own discretion. Use this workaround at your own risk.

Note An antivirus program is designed to help protect your computer from viruses. You must not download or open files from sources that you do not trust, visit Web sites that you do not trust, or open e-mail attachments when your antivirus program is disabled.

For more information about computer viruses, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

129972 Computer viruses: description, prevention, and recovery

SUMMARY

This article describes error messages that you may receive when you try to open a Microsoft Office document that indicates that an antivirus program may prevent you from opening the file. You may receive this error message if there is a compatibility problem between your antivirus program and Office, or the file is infected with a virus and cannot be corrected by your antivirus program. To resolve this problem, update your antivirus program. If you suspect that your document is infected with a virus, recover the document by using the procedure that is appropriate for your Office program.

INTRODUCTION

When you try to open a Microsoft Office document, a workbook, or a presentation, you may receive one of the following error messages:
The file filename is not available.

The file filename is unavailable.

User does not have access privileges.

Can't read the document filename.

Unable to read file.

PowerPoint can't read the document path to file.

Word cannot open this document template path to .dot file.

Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close.

Publisher can't read the document path to file.

Publisher cannot find the file you specified

Publisher cannot open the file.

The file cannot be opened because your virus scanner has detected a problem with the file.

Requesting Virus Scan

Microsoft Visual C ++ Runtime Library Runtime Error
abnormal program termination

The command cannot be performed because a dialog box is opened, click OK then close dialog-boxes to continue.

An error occurred and this feature is no longer functioning properly. Would you like to repair this feature now?
If you click No in the error message, you may receive the following error message:
Cannot start the source application for this object.
When you try to open a design template or try to apply a design template in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, you may receive the following error message:
\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\PresentationDesigns\template name was not applied. It may not be a PowerPoint presentation.
When you work on a chart object, you may receive an error message similar to one of the following:
The server application, source file or item cannot be found.
The server application, source file or item can't be found, or returned an unknown error.
When you quit Word, you may receive the following error message:
The file normal.dot already exists. Do you want to replace the existing file?
Additionally, you may experience one or more of the following behaviors:
  • The Open dialog box may be slow to display the list of files or to move to a different drive or folder.
  • A program may be slow to start or may appear to stop responding (hang).
  • The display of text that is typed may be delayed.

MORE INFORMATION

Update your antivirus software and its signature file

The antivirus program that you have installed on the computer may have to be updated because of a compatibility problem with the Office program. All major antivirus software manufacturers typically provide updates to address known compatibility problems with Office programs.

The antivirus program vendors periodically provide a virus signature file that is available for download from the Internet. This virus signature file must be updated regularly to correctly scan for all known forms of viruses.

If you experience this problem on a computer where a new version of antivirus software was recently installed from a CD-ROM, we recommend that you connect to the Internet and download the latest updates that are available from your antivirus software vendor. For more information about how to use Office programs together with the Norton AntiVirus Office plug-in, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

329820 How to use Office programs with the Norton AntiVirus Office plug-in

49500 List of antivirus software vendors

For more information about a Norton AntiVirus 2005 error message that states the repair feature is not supported, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

904427 You receive a "Norton AntiVirus 2005 does not support the repair feature" error message when you start an Office 2003 program

For Microsoft security antivirus information, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/antivirus/default.mspx

Recover the infected or damaged file

If you experience this problem on a computer where the latest version of your antivirus software is installed, where all signature files are up-to-date, and where the document will not open (but other documents do open), it is likely that the document is infected with a virus and the antivirus program cannot remove the infection.

There is also the chance that the document is corrupted (damaged) and cannot be correctly handled by either the antivirus software or the affected Office program. In this case, you may have to try to recover the document by using the related recovery utilities that may be available with the program.

Note Not all programs have file recovery or repair capabilities.

Microsoft Excel

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

820741 How to recover data from damaged workbooks in Excel 2002 and Excel 2003

179871 Methods for recovering data from damaged Excel 2000 workbooks

Microsoft PowerPoint

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

826810 How to troubleshoot damaged presentations in PowerPoint 2003 and in PowerPoint 2002

207377 How to troubleshoot damaged PowerPoint 2000 presentations

Microsoft Word

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

826864 How to troubleshoot damaged Word documents

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:3/23/2006
Keywords:kbtshoot kbopenfile kberrmsg KB835404 kbAudEndUser
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