Office 365 2016 Word

[Trouble]

I've got an issue that I can't seem to figure out.
I worked with a friend of mine recently on an issue he was having with the Word application in his Office 365 Suite.
Every other component (Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, OneNote) all function beautifully and without issue.
Word on the other hand opens to the blue square labeled "Office Word", which most of us see but a glimpse of, but his just sits there and does not go any further, never uses any CPU or Disk and only 30 or 40 megs of memory.

I invested a couple hours attempting to start it in safe mode (winword -safe) same results.
Tried Quick Repair, it just sat there forever and didn't seem to be accomplishing anything so I went to the .....
On line Repair, and again waited for about 30 minutes with no apparent progress and no CPU or Disk activity.
So I uninstalled it and re-installed it and everything was great again. He's a Deacon in the local Catholic Church, so he had some readings and reflections to write up in Word and was desperate to get back to it, so I didn't think anything more about it.

That was two or three days ago.
He just emailed me and it's doing the same thing again.

I worked on it remotely and I think, this time I'll have him drop it off so I can spend some quality time with it.

Just wonder if anyone might have some insight as to what might be going on.
I know, it's the Holidays so I'm not expecting much, but just thought I'd put it out there and see if there might be someone else who might have ran into something similar.

Remember the rest of the Office Suite works perfectly, even Outlook (the real Outlook not the fake one).

 

[Trouble]

OK..... Wait for it.......
Another email, Christmas morning.... Word is working perfectly again.
Nothing done, no attempts to repair, just started working again.
I suppose I should probably start looking for Add-ins and see if he has something installed that's causing this intermittent problem.

Been doing some research and I see that some programs install add-ins that can cause similar issues
Abby Fine Reader, Some various PDF programs, even some Avery templates, so.....
I'll poke around and see what I can find.

 

[Ian]

It starts working of it's own accord on Christmas morning, on a Deacon's PC? That's divine intervention

An add-on does sound like it could do that (especially as it worked fine after a full re-install), but I think Word safe mode disables all add-ins. Does anything show up in event viewer, or does that look ok too?

Hopefully it'll continue to work!

 

[Trouble]

I was never able to actually get it to launch in safe mode, when it wasn't working.
And after the whole uninstall re-install thing, everything worked so I never went back and looked for add-ins. Never checked event viewer application logs but I will.
As I was typing this, another email arrived, so I guess I'll be taking a closer look sooner than I had planned.

 

[Clive Roberts]

Hi,

This is possibly a boring old chestnut. Then again, so am I, so I'll continue.

Years ago I bought MS Works. Now, with W10, it of course will no longer work.
Fine, progress must be made. BUT ...

My Office 365 takes a long time to load Word or Excel. It is very annoying, and this is definitely not progress. I suspect that each time I open these programs .. sorry .... Apps, that MS is running a check to ensure I have paid! (Just because this is paranoid, it doesn't mean they are not out to get me.)

Apps are a pain-in-the-app. Why can't we choose to have old-fashioned programs which were kept in my machine, and therefore loaded quickly?

I have tried deleting add-ins, but even this procedure is tedious, and after every unsuccessful look at the add-in pages, the thing has to be re-found and selected.

Foxit also sneaks in some kind of add-in link to Word, which I find underhand.

I begin to distrust Windows updates because they all seem to load additional stuff which THEY want to push onto me, which I don't want, and which stuffs up my computer and slows it down, whilst acres of things are added on which I will never need this side of the grave. It also re-arranges my folder index, and decides which items appear in it, and which cannot be deleted. This is inappropriate behaviour indeed! I do not have the skills to differentiate the dross from the essential, so hordes of 'service hosts' litter my hard drive.

More and more choice?? Yes, but who is making these choices - not the customer.

Anything to be done?

Sincerely,

Very grumpy.