Mystery: Unable to find skin file. WORD, EXCEL, OUTLOOK

"A required file is missing. Unable to find skin file. Please reinstall this application."

When I try to run Word, Excel, Powerpoint from my Office 2000 Premium install or my Outlook 2002 from my PPC disk install, I get the above error message and the program closes down. these programs have worked for over a year on my PC without a problem. When this started, I did a system restored back two weeks in an attempt to fix the problem, but that did not help. I am running Vista Home. Access and Frontpage still work correctly. Uninstalling, deleting the remaining directories and reinstalling does not fix the problem. I did a check disk and a repair install as well. No luck so far.

I have searched the web for an answer and have not found anything.

I have a few question that would help me get closer to solving this mystery.

1. What is a "skin file" in relation to Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook?

2. Is there a known fix?

Please help.

Thank you,
Mitsa

 

Hi Mitsa,

I think the skin may be related to office's built in theme's feature.

You can open Access and try resetting the theme back to default or no theme. This may also change the theme's globally for the other office programs.

Here's my office 2002 help file details (this is from Word)...

Remove a theme
To remove the theme from your active document, Web page, or e-mail message, do the following:

On the Format menu, click Theme.
In the Choose a theme list, click (No Theme).
Note If a theme is being applied to every new file that you open, you will need to remove the default theme.

Default Themes
To remove the default theme, do one of the following:

From all new documents or Web pages

Open a Web page or document, or create a new one.
Applying a default theme to documents will not affect new Web pages, and vice versa.

On the Format menu, click Theme.
In the Choose a theme list, click (No Theme).
Click Set Default.
To also remove the theme from the current document, click OK.
From all new e-mail messages

also, the problem could be associated with Windows own built in theme's feature too.

Here's some more info...

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101749121033.aspx#1

Techsent

 

Still NOT WORKING....Re: Mystery: Unable to find skin file. WORD, EXCEL, OUTLOOK

Hi Techsent.

I appreciate your response.

I tried each of the things you said with Frontpage and Access. I also looked to see if I could change the theme in the office tools programs but was not able to. I changed my Vista theme to classic and default. I did some more research on this lead, however nothing worked. :cry

If you can think of anything else, please let me know.
Thank you,
Mitsa

 

UPDATE... PROGRESS... Re: Mystery: Unable to find skin file. WORD, EXCEL, OUTLOOK

I think I am getting closer, but I still need help.

I found this information:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProblemsStartingWord.htm

Using this I was able to start word using winword.exe /a

I tried doing the same with excel but was not successful. I came close by using excel.exe /s. However, it asked me twice for the user name and then came up with the same "missing skin file".

In any case, based on the article I should rename the Normal.dot files. I did, but it did not help.

Any suggestions as to how to get rid of any startup or macro files that may be installed in office's word, excel, powerpoint or outlook? :confused

 

Re: UPDATE... PROGRESS... Re: Mystery: Unable to find skin file. WORD, EXCEL, OUTLOO

Nothing yet... Any help out there????

 

Hi Mitsa,
I have been having the same problems with word and excel for the last couple of months and like you had no luck whatsoever looking on the internet! so I decided to mess around with the program on my own and I think I may have fixed it!
This is what I did;
1.I opened word(or excel whichever u wanna try first) and got it to the point where the message(unable to find skin file) appears.

2.leaving that message open i opened task manager-processes-Microsoft word and right clicked onto that and selected 'properties'.

3. I then chose the tab 'Compatibility' and where it says 'run this program in compatibility mode for :' i ticked the box and in the drop list i chose windows xp (service pack 2) and clicked 'apply'.

4. Now when i try to open word it crashes so i end the process in task manager.

5. now try opening word again and a message saying 'Word experienced a serious error the last time the add-in 'speak-a-message plugin' was opened. Would you like to disable this add-in?' (for some reason i think that when i crashed the program it brought out the add-in that was causing the problem! speak-a-message was a stupid program that i installed a while ago and got rid of not long ago but apparently not completely!) anyway click 'yes' to disable the add-in.

6. Voila! your word should now be working!!!!

7. You have to go through the same process with excel too for it to work.

I think you can un-tick the run program in compatibility mode(step 3) and it should still work!!

Please keep in mind that i am NOT a computer expert AT ALL and was merely playing around with a useless program (in my eyes - i had nothing to lose) its worked so far for me and I thought that id share this as there really is barely anything on the net! I hope this helps!

Good luck