The fact that the bar appears in safe mode is an important clue. It
probably means that there's an add-in that's interfering, possibly
because it's incompatible with Word 2007.
Restart Word in regular mode and go to Office button > Word Options >
Add-Ins. Use the dropdown at the bottom and the Go button to visit the
dialog for each class of add-ins and uncheck all of them. Restart Word
again, and see if the status bar appears. If so, re-enable the add-ins
(or at least the ones that you actually use) one at a time, to see
which one causes the status bar to disappear -- then disable or
uninstall that one.
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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