Fatal Error When Starting Microsoft Word 2007

If you get a fatal error when starting Word 2007 (or any version for that matter) the problem is usually related to one of two things:

1. Default printer driver has become corrupted.
2. Normal template has become corrupted.

To fix try the methods below in order:

1. Switch to a different default printer. If this fixes the issue, then you must delete and reinstall your original default printer.
2. Delete the Normal template.
1. Windows XP: go to %userprofile%\application data\microsoft\templates and delete the normal.dot or normal.dotm file that is listed there.
2. Windows Vista: go to %userprofile%\appdata\roaming\microsoft\templates and delete the normal.dot or normal.dotm that exists there.

One of those two methods should fix the issue. If it reoccurs then the problem could be related to an addin that continues to corrupt the normal template.