MW does not open

When I click on ANY Micro$oft Word window (blank document or saved file) Window Installer opens and starts to install some "new update". I got used to old MW and WANT NO UPDATES, new or old. So, I click on "Cancel" and the installation stops; then the following window pops up:

If I click Cancel, MW does not open, if I click OK, installation starts and then it demands XP Pro CD-ROM.
Is there ANYTHING I can do to use my MW peacefully? I want NO updates; I am not a professional writer, I probably use <10% of my current MW features! Is such forced installation legal? Even if it is free? (Which I doubt as I remember M$ ad for MW update and it wanted $140!

Run the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

"Microsoft Word has not been installed for the current user" error message in Word 2002
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322206

Dear Midknyte,
I did install Windows Installer Clean-Up Utility.
It looks to me like a short version of Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs: e. g. neither Microsoft Word nor Word (nor Windows) are listed there.
New Update still tries to install itself each time I open MW (only its blank frame appears, no text). Still, when I cancel installation, it stops and MW closes.
Now what? Please advise.

Things happen...
I recently restarted PC (for unrelated reason). After that the intruder disappeared. Sigh...
Yet another problem came, much-much worse. After I bought this PC, 6-7 years ago, I created a folder "My Documents", inside C:\ My Documents, then I moved the big MD from C:\ to D:\. For all those years, I saved in there all personal documents I have created and received, and also important receipts, references, links, instructions, etc. I think that yesterday I saw it, today I CANNOT find anywhere. The original WD, with all its subfolders, is present.
How a large folder, a few MB in size, could spontaneously disappear, and where to? Most importantly, can it be restored? I just ran System Restore, back to 10/11/09. Old crap that I've removed by running Revo Uninstaller is now back (PC was restored back to the restoration point created by Uninstaller). MD is nowhere in sight, Recycle Bin included.
Strange as it may be, Revo Uninstaller has not removed all files and folders of non- functional Windows Defender (which could not even update itself; I was told that, since a have Avast!, WD is not needed - that was the reason to uninstall it). Yesterday I manually removed the remaining files of WD from C:\ drive and from Registry. One folder of WD was so large for the Recycle Bin, that I clicked on Delete It Permanently.
I could not make a mistake and confuse it with MD; besides, they resided on different drives.
The only other possibility: That was M$ revenge for my uninstalling WD and fixing Microsoft Word for me! :-)

yurka--Let's go back to your original post in this thread and attached image.
The image does not show what you have reported. The image says you do not have Word installed. There is no indication that a download is or will take place, although it is suggested you install Word.
And you say a Windows CD was requested. WinCD's generally do not contain Word.

I understand you did try to reinstall Word. However, if you used the WinCD to reinstall, I can imagine that might have wiped your My Documents folder. But you say that folder was on D:\ drive whereas I assume Windows is on C:\ drive.
And you say "(PC was restored back to the restoration point created by Uninstaller)" That is not what Uninstaller does.
I am confused.
If you deleted the My Document file, you could try to recover it by using an Undelete program.
http://www.recuva.com/
http://www.webattack.com/get/restoration.html
http://www.officerecovery.com/
I suggest you download these to an external source (Flash thumb drive, floppy, CD in another PC) and run from there. You want to avoid writing to the drive in your PC where you thing the missing files/folders might be.
In the future backup your personal data to an external drive from time to time.

Jim,

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I understand you did try to reinstall Word.

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No, I did not. There was no reason. This add-on popped up by itself. All these days I clicked on Remind Me Later, then decided to see what more I may learn (I hoped to learn how to disable it). So, I clicked on Learn More - it was a fatal mistake. It started installation, apparently, over the existing MW. So, it was all lies about the "new update" (ever saw an (old update?Is it like a "free gift?)
Serendipitously, as I was preparing to screenshot the whole sequence of events and opened a saved MW file, an announcement popped up; it read something like: "It appears that you have troubles with MW. Do you want to stop this add-on?" When I composed myself (I never saw anything like that in my life!) I clicked Yes and it does not happen again! At least, now I know that it's called "Add-On". So, that's the end of the story, at least for now.

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you say "(PC was restored back to the restoration point created by Uninstaller)" That is not what Uninstaller does.
I am confused.

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Uninstaller does uninstalling, of course. In the process it creates System Restore points, so one can run System Restore later and undo everything. I think, it creates at least 2 points: before uninstalling and before Registry cleaning.

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But you say that folder was on D:\ drive whereas I assume Windows is on C:\ drive.

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Correct.
However, now it is irrelevant. I am almost sure that M$ saw YOU coming to the rescue and backed up :-)

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If you deleted the My Documents file, you could try to recover it by using an Undelete program.
http://www.recuva.com/
http://www.webattack.com/get/restoration.html
http://www.officerecovery.com/

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You said "Undelete program, yet gave three links. I have not visited them yet, will do it now. I'd like to know if I should use all three, sequentially, or ... Please, advise: I do not want to do anything inappropriate with these programs, as you even do not want them inside my PC:

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I suggest you download these to an external source (Flash thumb drive, floppy, CD in another PC) and run from there.

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I am going now to visit the links make myself familiar with these programs. As soon as I get your instructions, I will run it/them. If necessary, I'll wait till tomorrow or whenever. I am extra-cautious now and I have nothing to lose by waiting. Somebody will receive my letter later...Big deal.
And last point: I learned my lesson. I used to back up most important files and hard- to-get programs, etc. I first used CDRWs, then flash sticks. But in all those years this PC/WindowXP Pro never crashed, even occasional freezes requiring Task Manager and/or restarting, became extremely rare. So, gradually my backups became more and more frequents, and then forgotten altogether. Now I will resume at least monthly backups. I don't remember ever using Safe Mode, other that for delicate operations, and only under remote supervision. Incidentally, should I use Undelete programs in the Safe Mode?
See you soon.
Y.

Try open office free,,,which are small versions of word, and other office programs, or try Microsoft Works, which is a friendly mini office programs, and cheap.

Friend Yurka,,, as you know everything is possible...don't buy anything, but need a little of effort to do and get where you want to be, you will suffer, but you will learn...try all resources handy, and if need help, advise.

B-r-r-r, it's cold in NYC, how about MN?
You said:

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if need help, advise

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If you know anything about three "undelete" programs mentioned by Welshjim: which one is better? I have to recover a folder containing 25 subfolders with a few hundred files between them plus >125 stand alone files, a few hundred MB total. Which one of the two - top or bottom one - is better?(the middle one lists its limitations right away, I had hard time downloading it and could not install it). Another question - should I do it in Safe Mode? Or, maybe, "Recovery Console" ?
TIA,
Y.

As for the three recovery programs, you will have to experiment.
Reason, what works one time, may not work the next. :(

Thanks!
Of course. I will try them sequentially, if necessary. Do you know anything about my last question:

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Another question - should I do it in Safe Mode? Or, maybe, "Recovery Console" ?

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BTW, I found the March '09 flash stick backup copy of that folder; not up-to-date but better than nothing. I have to figure out yet how to transfer the contents of flash stick to the hard drive. At the same time an idea crossed my mind: what if I from now on ran My Documents folder on flash stick instead as a subfolder of Windows' My Documents? Right now I may think of two advantages of that:nothing like yesterday loss will ever happen again and I can take this important folder with me - to work, to show something to my friends, etc.

Get a couple more of those thumbdrives and alternate usage between them.

I also use USB drives and data CD's/DVD s to back things up.

Open the thumb drive and copy/paste it. But do it after you try salaving or they maybe overwritten and trully lost.

Thanks. I already have two: 1GB and 4GB.
Alternation - if something happens to one of them? Actually, it almost happened once: I misplaced 1GB stick and then it surfaced back a few months later. When it "disappeared" I went on line to buy a new one. During this time period a new 4GB stick became available for the same price I paid for 1GB one!

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post back. Let us know if it worked.

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I will let you now the results.

Jim advised me to run uninstall programs from from flash stick. Yet when I open both frinstall and fru2.0 (the top and bottom ones on his list) they are going to install on HD. Even their websites give the same advice, as Jim did. I thought that they were like System Works which comes on a CD and, when inserted, offers an option "Run the program from CD".
Should I install them (one at a time) on D:\ drive where My Documents folder used to be, or the drive does not matter?

Put them on C:\ in the programs folder.
Anyway what I do and have done since the 60 GB hdd come out years ago.

I will, probably on E, as it has more free space; the instructions for one of them warn only about untoward effects of installing it on the same drive as that missing file was, i. e. in my case, no D:\ 1. Download and install FreeUndelete. Whenever possible, save the setup executable and install the program to a disk that does not hold files you need to undelete. .
But...
I think I entered a period when many things break down, beginning with my arm to software and even hardware, and from experience I know that one should not try to fix this season of misfortunes: the matter can get worse. The best tactic is to wait quietly till life normalizes. Unfortunately, I need this missing folder badly.
However, when I tried to run a data DVD (found another old backup), neither of my drives could open - "Drive is not accessible. Incorrect function". In Device Manager M$ Kernel DSL Synthetizer has a yellow circle with exclamation point. After I read the description of the DSL Kernel I concluded that it could cause both drives to malfunction. I tried to troubleshoot it, its driver was up-to-date. So, I uninstalled it as soon as I found a download site for it. But when I clicked on download now, my WOT darkened the download page and warned me. I closed the page and could not find another download site. Immediately after that, the WOT icon disappeared; Start>Search found only two non-working shortcuts for WOT.
So, I did System Restore back to this morning, installed a new copy of WOT as it was not present even after System Restore job, but the fact itself is very alarming! Somebody seems to have access to my PC and moves and messes things. I have one suspect:

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This article applies to a different version of Windows than the one you are using. Content in this article may not be relevant to you.

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It happened when I was researching M$ site for some repairs. How M$ knows what version of windows I am using? What if I had Linux? Or something else? All this anti-malware, except Avast, can find malware by scanning the PC. I wonder, is there some "filtering" gizmos capable of catching malicious intruders before they enter the system, like Avast does: It warns me of incoming viruses BEFORE they break in (but not other malware, like Trojans and such.

Interesting reading I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware

yurka--

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I'd like to know if I should use all three, sequentially, or ... Please, advise:

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I think Train has already answered this. Undelete is just a name given to this type of program. None are named Undelete. They are just separate programs to hopefully get the recovery job done. So you try one and then another until you have success. :)

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Jim advised me to run uninstall programs from from flash stick.

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Not install. Undelete. I am surprised to hear they do not run from a flash stick. As mentioned the objective here is to Write as little as possible to your HD where the data you want to recover is located. Downloading to the HD is writing to the HD.

Thank you.
Actually, I'd rather write of some better things, but life sucks...
Just to keep you abreast: I installed Recover and did the deep scan of D:\ drive. It found all lost files, almost all of them in "excellent" condition. But... "Recover" button was grayed out and it requested me to register for $29.95, for one year. I gladly paid and get registered. (It appears to be a good SW; I hope that I will NEVER use it again, certainly, not in a year). But either I missed something at the beginning or no warning was displayed, at all: when I clicked Scan it started right away, and when I learned that unregistered version had limiter capabilities (no recovery), it was to late and now it's repeating the scan. I hope that eventually it will recover the lost files*.
I will read the link to Wiki yet would appreciate your opinion on the following:
1. Do you know a safe place to download M$ Kernel DLS Synthesizer from?
2. Seriously, how M$ knows what Windows version I run (and that I had troubles opening MW?
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* I spoke to soon: the Recover" button is still grayed out. Tomorrow I'll email them...
I told you than one has to wait patiently till the planets rearrange themselves :-)

I did emailed them and got a reply with instructions - how make screenshots of Error messages, etc. When I came home, I wanted to run Recover again, to make sure it's still malfunctional, but could not find it in my PC - see a copy of email I sen them instead of screenshots:

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Thank you for your timely reply.
I just got home and wanted to run Recover scan, to make sure that the Recover button is still nonfunctional buy could not find Recover in my PC. It is not present in Start>Programs, there is no icon on the Desktop, Start>Search has no evidence of it and only in Reg. Editor the is a Recovered Files folder, which is empty.
It all looks like a Halloween hoax but it's not Halloween yet. I even checked System Restore which automatically creates a Restore Point prior to any SW installation - no evidence of Recover. The only evidence that I ever touched Recover in in my Received Mail folder and that info, which I C+P to my Password folder: license Code: E717-D066-42A0-98D5-C89F-67E8-AD1F-2E4F-C3FC-D0DC, Expiry Date:October 18, 2010 .

I never encountered anything like that, nor have I ever heard of it. You and people around you know much more about computing and SW than me. So, perhaps you can solve this puzzle. BTW, can a new copy of Recover (when I receive and install it) recover itself? It would be a good test of Recover potential. But that for the future. Now I'd appreciate a new copy and the new license code (if a need a new one). I'll enter it before running my first scan.
Regards, Y.

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I wonder how many of you believe me and how many will think of me differently from now on and will ignore any future posts with my signature.
Seriously, though, I'd like to hear from anyone of anything like this.

Had a bad shutdown?

Lose lots of things sometimes with one of them.

Just salvaged a rig that had one. Boy did I jump through the hoops too.

Nope.
The closest thing to "bad shut down" (whatever it means) recently happened, might been prior to the disappearance of My Documents folder, or after - cannot remember. I do remember that I could not close a small window asking me about downloading something; since it was in the middle of the screen, it effectively blocked the screen. This window virtually paralyzed my work as I could not even open Task Manager to press on End Task, nor to click Start>Shut Down. So, I had to press power button and hold it for six seconds.
Another break down began on Sunday. Pressing Power button turns on PC. After 6 seconds it shuts down (no lights, no fun humming), for 45 seconds, then restarts as I am watching it in amazement. Just a nuisance, but interesting... To be continued...

"So, I had to press power button and hold it for six seconds."

Yes, that is a example of a bad shutdown and pretty close to what happened to the rig I salvaged.

I remember that years ago one of our company IT wizards taught me that 6" trick on my firm's PC and ever since I used it on all machines that refused to tun off with simple press push. He just told me that PC power switch is very different from household appliance power switches, i. e. it does more than interrupting power supply.
However, my priority now is to fix M$ Kernel DLS Synthesizer and to recover missing folder. I also wonder if those two seemingly different events are somehow connected, more than just in time, and if they are related to the two separate occasions, about two weeks apart, when ALL my Yahoo mail contacts received an email ad allegedly from me, that I never sent; it was not present in my Sent box either. (It happened 3-4 month ago). At that time somebody explained to me that a hacker got remotely connected to my PC and stole my contacts list.