After reg clean XP Home, my Office 2003 “cannot read registry"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peg
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P

Peg

After a reg clean (& yes, I now see enough on this site to know that was
stupid) my MS Office 2003 Excel, Word and Outlook open with an “eReference
embedding error†which says “cannot read Windows registry.†Other Office
pgms seem ok (Access, etc).

Running Windows XP Home (ver 5, SP3) & Office 2003 on Dell Dimension 4700,
P4, 1 GB RAM.

After I click “ok,†the error goes away, and I can work in the program and
save my files. So I can keep going, but am worried. Recently, I noticed
that the Search function in My Computer crashes.

I tried System Restore, but don’t have eligible dates going back far enough.
I tried Detect and Repair & it worked for a long time, but no change I can
see.
I thought I backed up Registry, but can’t find it.

1. How do I find Registry backup (if it’s there)
2. How do I fix the “cannot read registry†problem if it’s not
3. If you tell me to reinstall Office, should I delete it first, or just
install over old one?

I hope I'm in the right place. I tried looking at Office newsgroup, but
they don't seem to deal with Registry issues.

If this is the wrong group, can you direct me to right one?

Thanks ever so much,
 
Look in the folder where RegClean is installed, there should be some
Undo.reg files in there, merge them back to the registry to undo the
damage done by the registry cleaner.

John
 
Peg said:
After a reg clean (& yes, I now see enough on this site to know that was
stupid) my MS Office 2003 Excel, Word and Outlook open with an "eReference
embedding error" which says "cannot read Windows registry." Other Office
pgms seem ok (Access, etc).

Running Windows XP Home (ver 5, SP3) & Office 2003 on Dell Dimension 4700,
P4, 1 GB RAM.

After I click "ok," the error goes away, and I can work in the program and
save my files. So I can keep going, but am worried. Recently, I noticed
that the Search function in My Computer crashes.

I tried System Restore, but don't have eligible dates going back far
enough.
I tried Detect and Repair & it worked for a long time, but no change I can
see.
I thought I backed up Registry, but can't find it.

1. How do I find Registry backup (if it's there)
2. How do I fix the "cannot read registry" problem if it's not
3. If you tell me to reinstall Office, should I delete it first, or just
install over old one?

I hope I'm in the right place. I tried looking at Office newsgroup, but
they don't seem to deal with Registry issues.

If this is the wrong group, can you direct me to right one?

Thanks ever so much,
Click to expand...

If restoring using the undo files in the registry cleaner folder like John
suggested doesn't work (or there aren't any undo files), you can do a repair
installation of Office. It shouldn't be necessary to remove it first.

If indeed you did back up your registry when you thought you did, and Search
still isn't working, you can download and install Agent Ransack (my personal
sub for Windows Search, especially in Vista) and do a search by date. Or do
another registry backup and see where it's being saved.

Do you by chance have a Book Reader program such as Sony LRF or Book
Designer installed? If so, that may be where the eReference embedding error
comes from. Once Word is reinstalled (repair installation or otherwise),
that error should go away.

SC Tom
 
John

Shall we tell Twayne?

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Peg said:
After a reg clean (& yes, I now see enough on this site to know that was
stupid) my MS Office 2003 Excel, Word and Outlook open with an “eReference
embedding error†which says “cannot read Windows registry.†Other Office
pgms seem ok (Access, etc).

Running Windows XP Home (ver 5, SP3) & Office 2003 on Dell Dimension 4700,
P4, 1 GB RAM.

After I click “ok,†the error goes away, and I can work in the program and
save my files. So I can keep going, but am worried. Recently, I noticed
that the Search function in My Computer crashes.

I tried System Restore, but don’t have eligible dates going back far
enough.
I tried Detect and Repair & it worked for a long time, but no change I can
see.
I thought I backed up Registry, but can’t find it.

1. How do I find Registry backup (if it’s there)
2. How do I fix the “cannot read registry†problem if it’s not
3. If you tell me to reinstall Office, should I delete it first, or just
install over old one?

I hope I'm in the right place. I tried looking at Office newsgroup, but
they don't seem to deal with Registry issues.

If this is the wrong group, can you direct me to right one?

Thanks ever so much,
Click to expand...


Repairing the registry will probably not cut it. Uninstall and then
re-install MS Office..
 
Not surprisingly guys like him are never around when these cleaners
leave a mess that needs to be fixed.

John
 
No, no, that's not it! It's just that all those folks who used the
registry cleaners just didn't know how to use it, like he does!! :-)
 
You're correct, he's the only one who knows how to use registry cleaners.
It's obvious from his rhetoric.
 
Thank you, to everyone for your suggestions. Very helpful.

Unfortunately, John John, I can't find the undo files. Can't even find the
RegClean, so I don't know what I did.

SC Tom, I did download your Agent Ransack, which is great and solves my
Search problem, but still couldn't find the files.

I tried the Office Repair you suggested, too, but it did not solve the
problem.

This weekend I will be trying Mike Hall’s suggestion of a complete Uninstall
and Reinstall of MS Office.

Having messed up, already, I’m trying to do one thing at a time and very
carefully.

ANOTHER QUESTION, if I may: since my Sys Restore was monitoring everything,
it was only holding 2 days. I cut out all drives except C. I have WIN XP
HOME OS and all Programs on C (a 41 GB Partition), D has mostly data files
and E has photos. I’m assuming the only thing Sys Restore will really do for
me is restore registry files, OS, etc., so is it safe to leave off D & E?

Thanks again for all your help & expertise,
 
Thank you, to everyone for your suggestions.  Very helpful.  

Unfortunately, John John, I can't find the undo files.  Can't even findthe
RegClean, so I don't know what I did.  

SC Tom, I did download your Agent Ransack, which is great and solves my
Search problem, but still couldn't find the files.  

I tried the Office Repair you suggested, too, but it did not solve the
problem.  

This weekend I will be trying Mike Hall’s suggestion of a complete Uninstall
and Reinstall of MS Office.  

Having messed up, already, I’m trying to do one thing at a time and very
carefully.  

ANOTHER QUESTION, if I may:  since my Sys Restore was monitoring everything,
it was only holding 2 days.  I cut out all drives except C.  I have WIN XP
HOME OS and all Programs on C (a 41 GB Partition), D has mostly data files
and E has photos. I’m assuming the only thing Sys Restore will really do for
me is restore registry files, OS, etc., so is it safe to leave off D & E? 

Thanks again for all your help & expertise,
Click to expand...

I did a Google search for your eReference Embedding part and got some
hits and most are quite useless, but here is one that does not mention
the "cannot read Windows registry" part.

http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Office/microsoft.public.office.misc/2005-06/msg01568.html

The post is 5 years old and doesn't say what XP, Office, etc.

Now, I am not suggesting this a slam dunk for a botched registry and
you can read the link and other Google search results and decide to
try it (what have you got to lose?), or punt with the other ideas
posted by the experts here. The user problem in that link about
eReference says the error was fixed easily.

The other Google results seem to revolve around dictionaries, so SC
Tom could be on track with the book reader reference since that might
involve a dictionary, but you can read them if you want and see if
they sound like your problem.

I would still like to know if you find the stuff mentioned in the link
if you don't mind, or if you decide to try it, what happens.

It seems peculiar that there was mention here of the undo.reg files
from someone that has some experience with this product and you can't
seem to locate them - at least using conventional methods. I never
trust the Windows searching anyway and if your search is crashing get
to a CMD prompt, type in cd\ <enter> to get to C:\>, then enter:

dir undo*.* /s <enter> or maybe: dir *undo*.* /s <enter>

and see if you can find them.

The bad part is, if the above link helps fix it and something goes
haywire later, you will always be wondering if it was that darn
registry cleaner that got you... ;)

Uninstalling and reinstalling Office is a generally boring task, but
that might be the ticket.

You search crashing - I dunno about that. "Crashes" is a pretty vague
symptom!

Jose
 
Again, I want to thank you all for trying to help me. How remarkably generous
you are with your time and expertise. I’m still having problems, though.

As reported earlier, I cannot now find the undo files or the RegClean
files—even searching with Agent Ransack. I also tried the Office Diagnose &
Repair, with no success, as well as Diagnose & Repair inside Word and Excel.


Also, as Mike Hall suggested, I uninstalled Office, the reinstalled it—but
to no avail. Actually not true -- OUTLOOK NOW SEEMS REPAIRED. Yea for that.


I’m still getting the eReference Embedding error: “Cannot read Registryâ€
when I open Word, Excel or Powerpoint. I do NOT get it with Access or Outlook

(Again, I’m running Windows XP Home (ver 5, SP3) & Office 2003 on Dell
Dimension 4700,
P4, 1 GB RAM. After reinstall of Office 2003, I downloaded Office SP3 & the
other stuff it told me I needed to.)

After I click “ok,†the eReference Embedding error goes away, and I can work
in the program and save my files. So I’m wondering if I could just ignore
this?

However, I did report that the Search function in My Computer has begun to
“crash.†If I ask it to search drive C only, I get a good search. If I ask
it to search My Computer, it goes a long way and then gives me a “MS Visual
C++Runtime Library error “Program: C\WINDOWS\Explorer.exe has requested the
Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.â€

The only other thing new I have done is install an exterior hard drive from
Seagate, which is included in the My Computer search.

6. Jose kindly googled the problem & offered a link,
http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Office/microsoft.public.office.misc/2005-06/msg01568.html

but I’m not sure what I’m doing in regards to that. Javier complained of
the same error I have, but his related to an Am Herit 4th ed installation
with an Office Add In. I do have American Heritage Talking Dict 1997
installed, but it’s been there for years without causing a problem, and I’m
not aware of an Office Add In, nor do I use it from inside another program.
That’s the only Book Reader I have that I am aware of.

I checked all my “Startup†folders as described in those instructions but
found them all empty.

I searched for Addins and found the following:
C:\Windows\ADDINS\FXSEXT.ECF 1 kb ECF FILE modified 8/4/04
(but my problem began in April or May 2009)

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\ADDINS\ contains several
files:
DLGSETP.ECF 1 kb ECF file 8/3/98
DUMPSTER.ECF 1 kb ECF file 8/3/98
FAXEXT.ECF 1 kb ECF file 7/31/98
MSOSEC.DLL 7 kb App Extension 7/10/03
MSOSEC.XML 1 kb XML document 3/18/03
MSSPC.ECF 1 kb ECF file 10/7/98
MSVCR71.DLL 336 kb App extension 3/18/03
OKTLOADR.DLL 80 kb App extension 3/18/05
OUTEX2.ECF 1 kb ECF file 7/20/00
OUTEX.ECF 2 kb ECF file 9/2/98
OUTLVBA.DLL 48 KB App extension 3/22/07
PMAILEXT.ECF 1 kb ECF file 10/7/98
SCRPTXTN.ECF 1 kb ECF file 8/3/98

I daren’t touch anything there without expert advise, however none of the
dates modified are recent, which makes me believe these files do not relate
to my problem.


Any other suggestions?

Should I simply ignore the error and continue - or is that asking for
trouble?

Thanks again,
 
Gerry, I thank you for the info about System Restore. Limiting the monitoring
to drive C only is now giving me many more restore points.
 
Thank you for your suggestion. I thought this would do it, but although it
repaired Outlook, I still have the same problem in Word, Excel and
Powerpoint. (I answered in more detail under Jose's post as he gave some
more complicated instructions),

but if you have the time, I would appreciate any other suggestions.

Thank you,
 
Thank you for your suggestion.  I thought this would do it, but although it
repaired Outlook, I still have the same problem in Word, Excel and
Powerpoint.  (I answered in more detail under Jose's post as he gave some
more complicated instructions),

but if you have the time, I would appreciate any other suggestions.  

Thank you,
Click to expand...

That Jose always give more complicated instructions than are needed.


All that other stuff was about trying to find your backed up .reg
files. Forget that for now if you are past that part.

Is the eReference Embedding error your only remaining annoyance (with
Office)? That would drive me crazy and I would not chose to live with
it.

The link I posted was from a user that had that eReference Embedding
problem, searched for a reference to it in the registry, removed the
reference, end of problem. How it got there, what it all means, why
it was still there is a little mysterious. It does makes some sense
though, it is quick, so I think if it was me, I would at least give it
a shot.

If you do not understand the link information or are not comfortable
dealing with the registry (making a backup, searching, deleting, etc.)
find someone who is comfortable with it, or I will be glad to walk you
through it and you can try what the other person did.

Jose
 
Peg

Put your Office 2003 CD into your CD\DVD drive and then open Word with whatever
error is shown and go to Help and Detect\Repair. Repeat for Excel and PowerPoint
 
FIXED! I finally figured out what Jose's link meant about COM ADD-INS &
that's what did it! I still have no idea what they are, or where they came
from, but I had one in all 3 programs--Word, Excel & Powerpoint--that were
experiencing the eReference embedding error.

In case anyone else wants to know, here's what worked:

"chances are it is a COM add-in. To check for COM
Add-ins in Word use the following steps:

- Right-click any toolbar and select Customize
- On the Commands tab, select the Tools category
- Locate COM Add-Ins on the right
- Drag/Drop to a location (toolbar) of your choice, then click on it &
remove the eReference Add-in.


Again, thank you ALL for your time and expertise and trying to help me.
As with any problem, I have learned other things along the way.

Most gratefully,
Peggy
 
Peg said:
FIXED! I finally figured out what Jose's link meant about COM
ADD-INS & that's what did it! I still have no idea what they are, or
where they came from, but I had one in all 3 programs--Word, Excel &
Powerpoint--that were experiencing the eReference embedding error.

In case anyone else wants to know, here's what worked:

"chances are it is a COM add-in. To check for COM
Add-ins in Word use the following steps:

- Right-click any toolbar and select Customize
- On the Commands tab, select the Tools category
- Locate COM Add-Ins on the right
- Drag/Drop to a location (toolbar) of your choice, then click on it
& remove the eReference Add-in.


Again, thank you ALL for your time and expertise and trying to help
me.
As with any problem, I have learned other things along the way.

Most gratefully,
Peggy
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting back on how you fixed the problem.
Buffalo
PS: Happy to hear you got it fixed and BEWARE registry cleaners. They can
be helpful, but they can really be HAMFUL.
If you ever choose to use one in the future, make sure you learn how to
undo the changes also.
 
FIXED!  I finally figured out what Jose's link meant about COM ADD-INS &
that's what did it!  I still have no idea what they are, or where they came
from, but I had one in all 3 programs--Word, Excel & Powerpoint--that were
experiencing the eReference embedding error.  

In case anyone else wants to know, here's what worked:  

"chances are it is a COM add-in. To check for COM
Add-ins in Word use the following steps:

 - Right-click any toolbar and select Customize
 - On the Commands tab, select the Tools category
 - Locate COM Add-Ins on the right
 - Drag/Drop to a location (toolbar) of your choice, then click on it &
remove the eReference Add-in.

Again, thank you ALL for your time and expertise and trying to help me.  
As with any problem, I have learned other things along the way.  

Most gratefully,
Peggy
Click to expand...

Good job.

I looked at mine (I have never had your problem) and see the COM add
in, but can't drag it (the drag turns into an X) - maybe I don't have
any installed. Come to think of it, I don't even know for sure what
it is, so I will just leave mine alone.

Jose
 
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