Help an old lady

  • Thread starter Thread starter jhleslie
  • Start date Start date
J

jhleslie

Hi,

My 80 year old mother lives 330 miles away, she is pretty smart but
when stuff goes wrong with the computer it is a major hassle.

This time the File and Edit menus have disappeared in Word. How can
that happen? I didn't believe her when she told me but now she has
sent me a screen shot and sure enough there is a little vertical line
where the menus should be.

I've placed the screen shot here so you can see yourself.

http://www.users.waitrose.com/~zeonozo/word.jpg

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received.

Regards
Jackie
 
Specifically, the one you want is
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/RestoreMenuCmd.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

[Cross-posting to word.newusers]

Hello Jackie,

Here are some general references for MS Word:
You will find Word FAQ at this site, as well as other topics for MS Word
http://www.mvps.org/word/index.html

See also Office related newsgroups links
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...osoft.public.word.docmanagement&lang=en&cr=US

--
Maurice Naggar
MS-MVP
-----

Hi,

My 80 year old mother lives 330 miles away, she is pretty smart but
when stuff goes wrong with the computer it is a major hassle.

This time the File and Edit menus have disappeared in Word. How can
that happen? I didn't believe her when she told me but now she has
sent me a screen shot and sure enough there is a little vertical line
where the menus should be.

I've placed the screen shot here so you can see yourself.

http://www.users.waitrose.com/~zeonozo/word.jpg

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received.

Regards
Jackie
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thats great... but it is too complicated. It will take me at least 2
hours on the phone to explain that and at the end I will need to drink
half a bottle of whisky to calm down!

It has just occured to me that there ought to be a way of returning
Word to it's original state, is there a preferences file somewhere
that I can get her to delete so it will go back to the freshly
installed settings?

Hey thanks again,

Jackie
 
Or she could consider using System Restore to get back to an earlier restore
point, if that help her.

Jay said:
Specifically, the one you want is
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/RestoreMenuCmd.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

[Cross-posting to word.newusers]

Hello Jackie,

Here are some general references for MS Word:
You will find Word FAQ at this site, as well as other topics for MS Word
http://www.mvps.org/word/index.html

See also Office related newsgroups links
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...osoft.public.word.docmanagement&lang=en&cr=US

--
Maurice Naggar
MS-MVP
-----

Hi,

My 80 year old mother lives 330 miles away, she is pretty smart but
when stuff goes wrong with the computer it is a major hassle.

This time the File and Edit menus have disappeared in Word. How can
that happen? I didn't believe her when she told me but now she has
sent me a screen shot and sure enough there is a little vertical line
where the menus should be.

I've placed the screen shot here so you can see yourself.

http://www.users.waitrose.com/~zeonozo/word.jpg

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received.

Regards
Jackie
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
right click on a blank space on the bar where file and edit is on. In the
drop down menu select configure. You can add them back there.
 
The usual reason for losing Menu commands is a corrupt Word DataKey and
following the steps in the FAQ is the best way to go. You could use Windows
XP's Restore - but that may be even more difficult and possibly cause even
more problems. Reinstallation will not help.
 
Thats great... but it is too complicated. It will take me at least 2
hours on the phone to explain that and at the end I will need to drink
half a bottle of whiskey to calm down!

It has just occurred to me that there ought to be a way of returning
Word to it's original state, is there a preferences file somewhere
that I can get her to delete so it will go back to the freshly
installed settings?

Hey thanks again,

Jackie
Click to expand...

You can make the changes for her.

Netmeeting is free and is already present on all recent Windows
versions, except Vista. Here's what you do the first time:

- Click Start, Run, type CONF, click OK.

- Go through the one-time Setup Wizard, filling in first and last names,
email address, and deselect "Log on to a directory server when
Netmeeting starts". Just click your way through the audio tuning
wizard, unless you want to use them too.

- Then Netmeeting will start. One of you will have to email the other
your ip address. Here's a few ways to get that:

1. In NM, click Help, About Windows Netmeeting. The IP address is
there, but if it starts off 192.168. that's the wrong one, and you have
a router.

2. Go to whatismyip.com and copy/paste your ip address.

3. Click Start, Run, type CMD, click OK. Type IPCONFIG, and press
Enter and you'll see the IP address.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Now starts the common, everyday desk-sharing routine:

- Send the IP address.

- Recipient types it into the top pane, clicks the phone icon.

- After the connection is made, "host" clicks the low left icon, which
looks like a hand holding a window.

- Click Desktop, click Share. Click "Allow Control" button.

- You request control (an option at the top of the window with their
desktop display), they accept in the prompt that pops up, and you have
control. You can then click View, Full Screen and you'll see nothing
but their desktop on your screen.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Problems? Brian Sullivan offered the following:

The first thing that you have determine is if the MIL PC is behind a NAT
router or has a software firewall protecting it.

If the IP as shown in the help about of NM is from the sets 192.168.x.x,
10.x.x.x, 172.16-31.x.x, her computer is behind a NAT router of some kind.
If the router is under her control she would have to configure the
router to forward tcp 1503 to her computer (or put her computer in the
"DMZ").
Configuring the router is product specific so it is hard to give
explicit instructions. If she is running a software firewall she would
have allow NetMeeting to act as a server in her firewall software.

If the router is outside of her control you will not be able to call her.
It may be still possible to connect though if she calls you (all the
same instructions should be used but at your end.

Next you would have determine the "public" IP -- either from the help
about of NetMeeting or from the router configuration if a router.
Assuming NM is waiting for a call at the to be callled end, you can then
call using the public IP and have her share her desktop allowing control.
 
Hey thanks guys!

All those suggestions are helpful. The problem is now resolved, I made
a series of screen shots as a montage in Photoshop and sent that to
her, she has soved it using that.

I am particularly interested in Joe's suggestion about
NetMeeting.... I hadn't even thought of that, but I've seen it used
on my computer at work... I just need someone computer literate at her
end whilst I set it up.

Thanks again,

Jackie

PS Why is Word such a crap piece of software? I mean how did it get to
be so popular when it is so difficult to use? I mean, I use Photoshop
and Illustrator all the time and they are easy compared to Word, but
all word does is word processing, the most basic task imaginable. Soz!
Excuse my rant!
 
You could also use Vista's Remote Desktop Connection which lets you take
over the desktop and mouse remotely. Then you can drive the problem solving
directly whilst she can see what you are doing.

Terry
 
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