Microsoft Office Word 2007 Cannot Close After Attaching a .docx File in Outlook

OK, so I have researched and read several other users comments that are having/had a similar issue with this dialog pop-up error message from Microsoft Word 2007. The most common fix I have found is to search for "officeav.dll" and rename it to "officeav.old" and restart my computer. That sounded like a promising and easy fix. However, I cannot find that file on my computer, anywhere, so that solution obviously will not work for me, and I am desperately looking for another solution, and so now I am seeking your help, please...

I am running Windows 7, Service Pack 1, 64-bit version. I am using Microsoft Office 2007.

I recently was laid off, so I have been emailing my resume to potential employers, and when I attach my resume to my Outlook 2007 email, in .docx format, and then close Outlook, and Word (if it is happens to be open), I get several pop-up dialog boxes, but they are just duplicates of the same two separate dialog boxes, which repeat depending on how many attachments I include, or how many times I send emails with my resume/references. The first box states, "You cannot close Microsoft Office Word because a dialog box is open. Click OK, switch to Word, and then close the dialog box." Once I click OK, the second box states, "Word has encountered a problem." I click "Show Help" to get more information, and it states, "There is a problem saving the file..." It goes on but the information is useless, but it does mention the same thing about the antivirus issue at the end.

The thing is I never tried to save the file, nor do I always have Word open when this happens, when I am attaching the file(s). Now I may get two or three or four or... you get the idea... of these pop-ups depending on how many emails I send. And now I am wondering if I have a bigger problem if I do not have that "officeav.dll" file.

Can anyone help? If so, I would greatly appreciate it. I can answer any questions you may have, if I left anything out. Thank you in advance for you time and help!

 

If the pressing problem is to be able to send out your cv without experiencing this problem then you could create, if you don't already have one, a gmail account, which can easily be configured if necessary to show your usual email address. You will not then experience this problem.

I'll take a look at Office 2007 and see if I can replicate your problem.

 

That is not the issue at all. I can send the documents. It is afterwards that this occurs. It does not happen with my Yahoo or Gmail accounts, which I know very well how to use, thank you.

 

I have tested this with Outlook and Word 2007

- with Outlook only open

- with both Outlook and Word, but not the Attached file open

- with Outlook, Word and the Attached file open

I have not been able to replicate the problem but it suggests a problem with your Office installation. I would repair it.

 

Why would it work fine for a year, and then all of a sudden start acting like this? I think something else occurred, I do not believe it was the install of the software, and I doubt anyone will be likely to replicate the problem. I will re-install, and let you know, but if anyone else has any ideas, please let me know...

Thanks.

 

Before reinstalling try the repair function, I've had luck with it on prior occasions. I'm not running Office on this machine so I can't say which of two ways to get there is easier. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924614

I also think that going to Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs. May give you option to Repair Office all at once by offering an option to Change Office rather than uninstall and then it should have a Repair option from there. I found this link which seems to verify that it is an option. http://www.ehow.com
/how_5835874_fix-repair-office-2007.html

Since it is Word that is giving you the problem I would start by trying to run the diagnostic from within Word.

 

I am running Microsoft Security Essentials. If Norton is on this machine, it is not by my doing, I am pretty sure I removed all of the Norton (Symantec) products on here.

I have "Repair"-ed Microsoft Office 2007, so now I just have to test it. I will let you guys know my test results when I get them. Thanks for the input thus far...

 

I Repaired Office 2007 and I am still having the same issue... And I do not have Symantec/Norton on here...

Now what?

 

Update/Edit:

I am still having this issue after the "Repair" on Microsoft Office 2007 in Add/Remove Programs. Now here is more about the issue:

The issue only occurs with Microsoft Outlook.
It also ONLY occurs when send Microsoft Word document attachments.
It does NOT occur when sending Excel spreadsheet attachments.
It does occur when I have Microsoft Word CLOSED, not open, and afterwards, I still get those Microsoft Office Pop-Ups... Weird, right? rolleyes

When I did the search for "officeav.dll," which I previously mentioned, I did search for all of the hidden and system operating files. I did check/uncheck the boxes in the Folder View Properties Tab. So at this point, I am really lost now... It seems like the further I investigate this, the more it does not make sense. :***

Can any one think of anything else??? HELPPPPP.... :cry

 

csecl...I have MS Office 2007 and a search (including hidden files) didn't turn up officeav.dll. Ran a few tests, and I don't seem to have the same problem with Word on XP using Outlook 2007.

Did you install ANYTHING any time around the time of the emergence of the problem? The A-V idea sounds possible to me even though you use MSE. You could turn it off and install Avast to see if that solves your problem. That's what I use, and this issue isn't present for me.

Looking at similar problems across the internet, most of the problems seem to be associated with an installation of a program or app...

 

Thank you for your input.

I don't think it is MSE, but I will give that a try. I will also look at my program list and see what programs were installed when I recognized the start of this issue and uninstall one by one and see if that helps. I have to admit that I recently installed "some copyrighted software and/or material that was shared with me" so I will address those first. I am usually pretty good at picking out the right software to get, but maybe one may be affecting Office. I will let ya know...

 

officeav.dll gets installed when you install NIS. I wonder if there is a remnant somewhere in the registry that is still looking for that file.

One check to do is to open the registry (Click Start, then run, then type in regedit (press enter))

Click Edit then find, then type in officeav.dll then click find next and wait. Don't delete any entries, just post here your findings.

Or have you tried running ccleaner and run the registry cleaner portion? (making sure you do a backup).

 

I have run CCleaner in the past few months, can't remember if it was before or after I started having this issue, but I will do it again and post my results from the registry search. I also want to clarify something, I never (intentionally) installed any Symantec/Norton products on here, I just know if it had come with a free trial than that would have been instantly removed. The only other way is for their software to come in as an add-on to the other programs I have installed. Also, I also want to point out that I have now noticed that this issue also occurs when just opening and closing a file in Word, so I wonder if we can rule out any Outlook issues, that maybe it is just a Word issue? :confused

 

I know COM Add-Ins was suggested. Did you look there. Under, Tools menu, click Trust Center, then Add-ins. Give us the list that is there. Also, if you want, you can uncheck everything in there, and hit okay. But, just remember what you unchecked. Then test.

You can do the same with word.

 

Don't know if this helps...Around 8 months ago I ran the system cleaner in Advanced Uninstaller Pro. It turned up some things that it indicated I could remove, one of which was the Windows Installer. I thought for several seconds thinking the developer of AUP was challenging me to trust AUP only. I decided to go through with the removal and removed some associated .dlls on the instructions of the program. That caused a number of problems with MS Office. Macros wouldn't work, flash elements of files didn't appear in files, and I even had problems with opening and closing programs and MSO files. I also couldn't install ANYTHING and some programs wouldn't open. I got by the install problem by running a repair install of XP. That put Windows Installer back on the machine and restored the .dlls. The XP repair made it possible for me to open MSO files, but much of the functionality was still missing. Then I tried a repair of MSO, but that didn't work. I had to reinstall flash, shockwave, and a number of other programs to get all the features back in MSO. There were also a number of other programs I had to reinstall that are macro based. I was lucky in that the fix only took me about 3 hours, but it could have been worse. Because of this experience, I think TheeFool could be on the right track, or perhaps CCleaner got rid of a registry entry or a .dll that is important for Office but is part of Windows. I don't know much about registry issues, but I stay away from CCleaner's registry cleaner. I have Comodo System Utilities, but I've only used it once. The AUP experience I had turned me away from registry cleaners for the most part...if anything just remove the bare minimum. I do think TheeFool is on the right track (with the add-ins idea too)...

I tend to side with the idea that something has been deleted over something being changed or added in conflict to Office...

 

Ok, so I did the registry search for "officeav.dll" but there were no results.

I opened Word, checked the COM Add-In's, but there were nothing in there, nothing checked, nor unchecked, it was just blank.

I opened Outlook, checked the COM Add-In's in there as well, and here is what was checked off:

Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Colleague Import Add-In
Microsoft Outlook Mobile Service
Microsoft VBA for Outlook Addin
Windows Search Email Indexer

Here is what was NOT checked off:

Calendar Gadget for Windows SideShow
iTunes Outlook Addin
Outlook Change Notifier

So there are my results from those "searches," if you will, however, now I am confused as to whether or not I should run CCleaner again. Since I did not find that DLL, should I still run the Registry Cleaner? And now I am getting what I think is conflicting information from AtlBo who stated "I stay away from CCleaner's registry cleaner." Can you guys please let me know how to proceed, if you need more info, or if I should run CCleaner, or maybe re-install Office? However I rather keep the re-install of Office as a last hope.

Thanks for the help! :cool

 

csecl...the straw that sort of sent me over the edge was Advanced Uninstaller Pro. However, I have used CCleaner's registry cleaner to see what it comes up with. Then comparing the results to Comodo System Utilities...CCleaner is VERY aggressive cleaning. For me, I'd rather go with Comodo's mildest setting if I will ever have to clean the registry.

What happened with AUP with me is similar in principle to what can happen with any registry cleaner. The biggest problems that can happen with registry cleaners have to do with situations like this:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...i/thread/69290581-22f8-4679-a38e-65db4e0017dc

In this case, even having a back up of the registry couldn't have saved him once he had shut the machine down. The system changes made from the cleaning made it impossible for him to do anything. And there was no way he could have known there was even a problem before shutdown. This is why I approach the issue with the utmost caution...

 

So are you saying that there might be a registry issue and it needs attention, or not? I am now confused, you may have surpassed my knowledge base. I don't understand what that last reply has to with my issue...???

 

Not anything I guess now that you mention it...other than maybe it might help avoid something like this in the future to know that the CCleaner registry cleaner has caused some problems, and it does remove some .dlls. Then again, it could be something else causing the problem, so I get your point.

Have you seen this?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329820

It's over my head, but it has to do with the Norton Office plug-in which installs the OFFICEAV.DLL file.

Based on what I am seeing around the net, Norton must have somehow been actually installed on your machine. OfficeAV.dll is part of the Norton program as theefool mentioned. Here's the most likely path to the file when it's installed:

File: "C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\OfficeAV.dll"
32768 Bytes v8.0.7.17

Another one could be:
"C:\Program Files\Navnt\OfficeAV.dll"

This page describes it as the Office plug-in for Norton (or at least part of it I guess):

http://dllfiles.co/officeav-dll/

There is a version of Officeav.dll that you could download there and place into a folder in your program files mimicking the path to see if that stops the problem while you search for a permanent solution.

After searching pretty hard, I am nearly convinced that Norton is the culprit...not CCleaner. Whether creating a temporary path for the file in your Program Files works for you or not, contacting someone on the Norton board might be the next logical step to solving this problem...

Unless theefool or someone else has something up their sleeve...

EDIT: This Google search looks fairly productive:

What is the xp installation path of officeav.dll

I am trying to find the installation path for the .dll in xp but haven't had any luck. Hoping you can mimic the installation placement of the file by adding it in its correct path

 

I don't know anything about the officeav.dll except that someone else said to look for it in another Google search I did...

Update: I just sent a different Word file (not my Resume) after using CCleaner earlier (but not to clean the registry), and giving you the reports below (of the add-ins), and unfortunately... :cry

I got the same pop-ups, and Word was not open. However, when I was typing the file in Word, and then closed Word, I did not get the pop-ups, which I mentioned before sometimes happens, I sometimes get the pop-ups just by using Word and closing a file. However now I think that it is possible that it is popping up after I create/edit a file in Word then attach it right after in Outlook? Just a guess though...

 

OK...I don't think I would be too encouraged by that. .dll hell as is in known goes all the way back to Windows 98 that I remember and maybe even 95 and further. If the .dll is the problem, it will take some ingenuity to fix it.

After thinking it through, I believe for now that you do have a .dll problem. With officeav.dll, you have a file that has been known to cause problems. On top of that, the error message blamed the .dll. Obviously, since officeav.dll is part of Norton, you must have installed Norton as a part of another program as you mentioned. Then you probably did as you indicated and got rid of it and that's why it's not there. In light of this, .dll hell explains the pop ups perfectly. I've had several similar problems over the years involving .dlls, and they almost always have revolved around the removal of a program.

One thing I would like to know is...are the pop ups Microsoft Windows pop ups or from Norton or Outlook or another program? It would be nice if you could somehow tell. If they are system pop ups, that could indicate that Windows is expecting to find officeav.dll (or perhaps Outlook). By the way, is this Office Outlook? Either way, you could try to reinstall it if you have or can get the installer.

If Windows is looking for the .dll, that means it believes Norton is still on the machine. In that case, you could run a repair installation of XP if you have an installation disk and the serial. That could remove the problem. The repair installation takes awhile, but you won't lose anything but updates, which only take a couple of hours to download and re-install.

Otherwise, the Norton bulletin board is perfect for this question. I think you could easily get the answer there...

There is one other thing you could try that I can think of. Install a current Norton installation (the free part). First, though, if you download and install an uninstaller like Comodo Programs Manager before installing Norton, you could then use it to get rid of the entire program...not just the main parts of it. If you do choose to try this, you just leave Programs Manager open for the installl and it will automatically monitor the install. You will see the dialog to do the uninstall in the Programs area.

 

I will post screenshots. That will show you exactly what I mean.

 

CCleaner is NOT an aggressive registry cleaner, which is why it's often recommended in this forum as the safest registry cleaner to use.

I have Office 2007 installed on a laptop running Windows Vista and a desktop system running Windows 7 and use CCleaner on both. I've never had issues with any Office apps in either computer. So, I very much doubt that it has caused any problem for csecl.

By the way, I have avast! Antivirus installed on both systems mentioned above.

 

It's safest usafveteran, but I wouldn't classify it safe. It removes temporary internet files safely...

 

OK... Back to the issue at and hand please... Any other ideas? Maybe I should wait for theefool? Any suggestions though from whomever will be greatly appreciated. Thanks :cool