A quick post, regarding a problem I was having with Office 2007 and how it was solved. I had a client with a problem of Page Numbers not showing up correctly. The error received was the following:

Word cannot open this document template. (drive_letter:\…\1033\Building Blocks.dotx)

Fortunately Microsoft has a KB Article about this very error. This involves two fairly straightforward steps.

  1. Moving “%userprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\Building Blocks.dotx” out of that folder and restarting Word. Causing Word to grab the (hopefully uncorrupted) one from “%programfiles%\Microsoft Office\Office12\Document Parts\1033” and work cheerfully again.
  2. Removing/renaming both Building Blocks.dotx files listed above and running an office repair through appwiz.cpl (Programs in Control Panel).

Interestingly enough neither worked even after going through once more. I even tried a complete uninstall and the problem persisted. What I soon noticed though, is that creating a new user profile and testing it out, it worked just fine. This meant it was profile related, and all the uninstalls you (and I) previously did were worthless!

The step I wish I had seen from microsoft after those would have been:

  • Log into the affected user and REMOVE the Office Registry Keys in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. The exact path being: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word

Be prepared to lose any word customizations, but I find that most users would not find this to be a problem. Just back up the keys beforehand. If that does not solve it, you could try traversing up the tree a bit and deleting the Office key.

24 Comments

  • # NealJMDMay 6, 2011 at 1:58 am

    Awesome. I’ve been trying the first two suggested solutions until I found your post, this fixed it for me. A tip for anyone else (like me as of 10 minutes ago) who stumbles onto this and doesn’t know where to find HKEY_CURRENT_USER, it’s in your registry. You go to Start > Run > “regedit” > Enter then browse to the folder described here.

  • # MikeOctober 18, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    Thanks Mike, this worked perfectly. I’m also surprised that it doesn’t feature on the KB article though…

  • # Claire CardOctober 30, 2011 at 3:28 pm

    Thanks Mike I tried all the fixes as well. Your solution worked….the problem coincided with an MS update, maybe a cooincidence?

  • # AdministratorOctober 30, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    Possibly! You never know. Though if that was the case chances are there must be another few ‘variables’ that must be in place to have this problem triggered.

    Unfortunately I forgot to backup the original registry when I did it, I was tempted afterwards to do a comparison between bad and good to see if I could dissect it and find the root cause.

  • # meMarch 7, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    Thanks! Your registry fix worked perfectly for me, too.

    This had been getting very frustrating, since the other solutions MS offered had not. Very glad that your advice came up in a search.

  • # ManuelOctober 24, 2012 at 9:34 pm

    Thank you Mike! You saved me a lot of time. This is one more piece of evidence of how useless the Microsucks website is. I am very grateful.

  • # LoriOctober 31, 2012 at 2:46 am

    Can I use this in MS Word 2010 also ?Can you tell me exactly what I need to delete. I have been having this problem for over a two months and finally stumbled on this website THANK YOU!!

  • # AdministratorNovember 1, 2012 at 12:03 am

    Hi Lori! Sorry, I am unsure if this works on Word 2010 as well. You would have to delete HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0 I believe (it will be higher than 12.0). Please do so with caution as this may break something!

  • # LoriNovember 1, 2012 at 12:25 am

    Thanks for your response. Thanks for trying to help me.:)Sorry this message is kinda long. I deleted the 14.0 and I am still having the problem. This problem occured when I tried to open up an Open Office document on my computer and Office has not recovered since. I get an error message:

    Problem signature:
    Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
    Application Name: WINWORD.EXE
    Application Version: 14.0.6024.1000
    Application Timestamp: 4d83e310
    Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
    Fault Module Version: 6.0.6002.18541
    Fault Module Timestamp: 4ec3e3d5
    Exception Code: c0000005
    Exception Offset: 00066422
    OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
    Locale ID: 1033

    Additional information about the problem:
    LCID: 1033
    skulcid: 1033

    I also am having this problem:
    (%1 is not a valid Win32 application ((0x800700c1)and have not been able to find a solution anywhere. I accidently deleted partition D: with recovery and now I cannot do anything to computer.I keep getting the error message cannot even backup my system. But it still works ! Can you help me!!

  • # AdministratorNovember 1, 2012 at 12:42 am

    Sorry, this sounds well beyond the scope of this article! I would suggest having a local desktop support tech look into this.

  • # LoriNovember 1, 2012 at 1:23 am

    Thanks for your looking and your time. 🙂

  • # AdministratorNovember 1, 2012 at 9:04 pm

    Best of luck with a speedy recovery on that problem Lori 😀

  • # AliNovember 20, 2012 at 5:04 pm

    I sincerely thank you for this solution, YOU ARE MY HERO!

  • # Carl JohnsonDecember 5, 2012 at 9:31 am

    Thanks for the fix, this worked!

    Also thanks to @NealJMD for the steps to get to the file

  • # CassieApril 20, 2013 at 8:27 am

    Hi

    I had the same problem today somehow but I am not sure which file should I delete since there are 5 files in that folder. And above mentioned I should back up the key but I don’t which file should I back up and how to back up. Sorry that these questions sounds stupid, but I don’t know what to do. Please help as I need to hand in my report soon but somehow this problem crops up. Thanks.

  • # AdministratorApril 20, 2013 at 8:41 am

    Hi Cassie, the file you should be looking for is Building Blocks.dotx, you don’t have to delete it. I would just move the file out of the folder and see if that helps.

    For the second part, you start the program up by going to Start -> Run, then run command ‘Regedit’. To back up HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word you simply navigate to it like you would using Windows Explorer, then left click the Word folder on the left, and click Export. This will save all values at and below that point to a REG file in case deleting it caused issues. If it backfires you can always run the REG file to restore those files if you deleted them.

  • # CassieApril 20, 2013 at 9:49 am

    Thanks Mike. Seems it works. 🙂

  • # AdministratorApril 20, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    Glad I could help, Cassie!

  • # GeorgeApril 21, 2013 at 6:19 am

    Thanks! Thanks a lot. It worked

  • # Jeannette BelleroseApril 21, 2013 at 10:58 am

    Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 8 has been a real nightmare. Not being able to number pages in my Word 2007 documents was one source of aggravation, but your solution worked. Thank you so much, Mike!

  • # StephaneAugust 6, 2013 at 9:01 pm

    Thank you for the information. i was at my wits ends trying to fix that error. All google could do is point me to the same resolution of deleting the building block file on and on.

    In my case, i had to (export then) delete the entire Office tree for the HKEY current user.

    Thanks again
    Stephane

  • # saeidehDecember 13, 2013 at 10:46 am

    thanks a lot! the solution was wonderful!! 🙂

  • # Lyton FredrickApril 17, 2014 at 10:20 am

    Fellows,
    This problem is caused somehow in the user profile. The best way to solve it is through the registry. Just go to START
    type “regedit.exe” (without quotations)
    navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0
    delete the folders WORD and USER SETTINGS
    close registry
    restart your pc and all should be ok

  • # Catleeh TranDecember 23, 2017 at 4:50 am

    @Lyton Fredrick
    April 17, 2014 at 10:20 am
    Fellows,
    This problem is caused somehow in the user profile. The best way to solve it is through the registry. Just go to START
    type “regedit.exe” (without quotations)
    navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0
    delete the folders WORD and USER SETTING”
    close registry
    restart your pc and all should be ok

    Thanks for your way above. Only this way able to fixed my problems