ARCHIVED: In Microsoft Word 2000, why did my toolbars and menus disappear, and how do I restore them?

Occasionally, your toolbars and/or menu bar may disappear when you start Microsoft Word 2000. There are several possible causes for this:

• Word is running in full-screen mode.
• A macro is running when you start Word.
• Another program or Word add-in has modified the user interface.
• The Windows registry key that stores the display settings for Word is damaged.

Full-screen mode

If you exited Word while it was running in full-screen mode, it may still be in this mode. To restore the toolbars and menus, simply turn full-screen mode off. From within Word, press Alt-v (this will display the View menu), and then click Full-Screen Mode. You may need to restart Word for this change to take effect. If Alt-v does not reveal the View menu, continue with the following steps.

Macro running when you start Word

To determine whether a macro is running when you start Word, try starting Word from the command line, as follows:

1. Click Start and then Run....
2. Enter the path to winword.exe. This is typically:

     C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\winword.exe

3. If Word starts correctly, the problem is that a macro is running when you start Word.

If you have determined that a macro is starting with Word, you are most likely starting Word from a shortcut on your desktop. To fix this, modify the shortcut to prevent the macro from starting, following the steps below:

1. Right-click the shortcut, and from the menu that appears, choose Properties.
2. Click the Shortcut tab.
3. Look at the "Target:" box for a command line similar to the following, where /mmacroname is the name of a macro:

     "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\WINWORD.EXE" /mmacroname

4. If you see /mmacroname on the command line, remove it, and then start Word normally.

Modified user interface

To determine if another program or a Word add-in has modified the interface, follow these steps:

1. Click Start and select Run....
2. Click Browse.
3. Use the "Look in:" box to locate Winword.exe, and then click to select it.
4. Click Open.

   Note: This step fills in the "Open:" box in the Run dialog box.

5. Click inside the "Open:" box after the text:

   "Winword.exe" 

   Note: The path to the Winword.exe file in the Run dialog box is enclosed in quotation marks. Be sure to click to the right of the closing quotation mark.

6. Type a space, and then type /a. The statement in the "Open:" box should look similar to the following example:

     "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe" /a

7. Click OK to start Word.

If the steps above solve the problem, your global template may be corrupt. To prevent formatting, AutoText, and macros that are stored in the global template (Normal.dot) from affecting the behavior of the program or documents that are opened, rename your Normal.dot file.

Renaming your Normal.dot template allows you to quickly determine whether the Normal template is causing the problem or behavior. Renaming this template resets several options back to the default settings, including custom styles, custom toolbars, macros, and AutoText entries. For this reason, Microsoft strongly recommends that you rename the Normal.dot file.

Certain kinds of configurations may create more than one Normal.dot file. These situations include cases in which there are multiple versions of Word on the same computer, or several workstation installations on the same computer. In these situations, be sure to rename all copies of Normal.dot.

To rename the Normal.dot file, follow these steps:

1. Quit all instances of Word. If you use Word as your email editor, be sure to quit Microsoft Outlook also.
2. Click Start and select Find (in Windows 2000 or XP, select Search), and then Files or Folders.
3. In the "Named:" box, type Normal.dot.
4. In the "Look in:" box, select your local hard disk (or an alternate user template location if you are running Word from a network server).
5. Click Find Now to search for the file.
6. For every Normal.dot file that appears in the Find dialog box, right-click the file. From the menu that appears, select Rename. Enter a new name, such as OldNormal.dot or Normal-1.dot.
7. To close the Find dialog box, from the File menu, select Exit. Then restart Word normally (without using the /a switch).

Damaged registry key

If the problem persists, the Windows registry key that stores Word's default display settings is probably damaged, and the key will have to be renamed.

Renaming the Data key resets several options to the default settings, including the Most Recently Used (MRU) file list on the File menu and many settings that you customize when you click Options on the Tools menu. Word rebuilds the Data key by using built-in default settings the next time you start Word.

To rename the Data key, follow these steps:

1. Quit all Windows applications.
2. Click Start and select Run....
3. In the "Open:" box, type regedit and click OK.
4. Locate the following key by double-clicking the appropriate folders:

     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word\Data

5. With the Data folder selected, from the Edit menu, select Rename.
6. Enter a new name for the Data folder, for example:

     OldData

7. To close the Registry Editor, from the Registry menu, select Exit. Restart Word normally (without using the /a switch).

If Word starts correctly, you have resolved the problem. You may need to change a few settings to restore the options you had selected.

The information in this article is adapted from article 242368 in Microsoft's knowledge base.