How-To

When Microsoft Office Breaks, Here’s How to Fix It

By Brian Burgess

Updated October 16, 2023

Microsoft Office is a powerful and complex suite of programs that allows you to get a lot of work done. But, just like with any other program, sometimes it becomes unstable and doesn’t work how you need it to. Here are some tips to help you solve issues when things go awry.

Diagnose and Repair Office 2007 or 2010

Office 2007 includes the Microsoft Office Diagnostics tool. it’s a simple utility that’s wizard-based and runs diagnostics on Office that identifies problems searches for solutions, and repairs them itself. After it’s done, you’ll get a detailed report of the results. If a problem can’t be fixed, it provides a link to a Microsoft site that will provide you with more details of what’s wrong and possible fixes.

Microsoft removed 2007’s Diagnostic Tool in Office 2010, but you can still run an Office repair. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features, right-click on Microsoft Office 2010, and select Change.

On the next screen, select Repair, and Microsoft Office will go through and do a repair, and hopefully, that will get you up and running again.

For full details on both Office 2007 and 2010, read Diagnose and Repair Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010.

Fix Microsoft Office 2013

While Office 2013 doesn’t have a built-in diagnostic tool like Office 2007, you can download the free analyzer tool from Microsoft that will identify problematic Office configurations. It’s called the Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool or OffCAT.

For full details on running OffCAT, check out Fix Office Problems with OffCAT.

Speaking of Microsoft Fix it, you can get easy fixes for specific problems for virtually all consumer software products the company offers. It’s definitely a good resource to have, and Microsoft provides all of the fixes for free.

Sometimes, when you can’t fix the office suite with the above tools, it might come down to reinstalling it completely. However, when you do install Office, it digs it hooks deep into the OS and can be quite difficult to completely uninstall it. You’re definitely not going to completely uninstall it using Programs and Features in Control Panel.

In fact, I wrote an article a while ago: How I Completely Uninstall Software. In that article, I recommend using Revo Uninstaller. I actually tried that with Office once, and it found so many leftovers that I just gave up because it was a ridiculous headache.

So, read: How to Uninstall Office 2013 or 365 the Easy Way. This uses a Microsoft Fix-it Solution that is so convenient I recommend it to everyone. It uninstalls Office with a couple of clicks and lets you do a clean reinstall.

Speaking of Microsoft Fix it, you can get easy fixes for specific problems for virtually all consumer software products the company offers.

Hopefully, some of these tools will help if you’re having trouble with the Microsoft Office suite as a whole. It is worth mentioning that if you’re still running Office 2003 – which Microsoft is no longer supporting – it has a repair tool with it as well. It’s been a long time since I ran that, but I believe you put in your Office 2003 disc, and it gives you the option to repair it.

Now, if you’re having problems with individual programs in MS Office, such as finding the Outlook temporary OLK folder, or just need a tutorial like how to create booklets in Word, then use the search box on our site because chances are we’ve covered it…no matter which version you’re running.

If you have a specific question about fixing or doing something in Office, then check out our Microsoft Office forum. There are a lot of knowledgeable people in there who will be happy to help!