Cannot Start Word Processor

[Wijono]

I have preinstalled Microsoft Works 9 in my Eee PC.

I seldom use it, but since a couple of days I find weird behavior as follows:

When I click Word Processor from the Start Menu, instead of the Microsoft Works Word Processor it is the Windows Installer that is started that ends up asking Installation Disc (works9.msi) that I do not have. I have to cancel it and error message pops up.

All other Microsoft Works programs like Spreadsheet etc. work perfectly all right. Only Word Processor behaves strange as mentioned above. However, I can start the Word Processor by directly double-clicking WksWP.exe in the Microsoft Works folder, and it seems to work also OK, I can also create a shortcut for WksWP.exe, clicking that shortcut will also start Word Processor with no problem. Only the original Works shortcut with greyed out target behaves like that.

What could be wrong and what could be done to bring it back to normal.

All hints and supports will be highly appreciated.

[Wijono]

After searching in the Internet, finally I found out that the Microsoft Works shortcuts with the Target field greyed out belong to the so called "advertised shortcuts", which is basically a Windows Installer shortcut that provides two key features familiar to anyone who has installed Microsoft Office: "Install on first use" and "Detect and Repair".

When a Microsoft Works program is activated, the Windows Installer engine checks

whether proper versions of needed files are installed. If a file is not installed or is

damaged, Windows Installer will initiate an Install-On-Demand to repair anything that is

missing or damaged.

That said I tried to find out what was causing the demand to reinstall MS Works Word Processing, with the help of Event Viewer, I found the following:

Detection of product '{15BC8CD0-A65B-47D0-A2DD-90A824590FA8}', feature 'WP', component '{8EF0B1F1-7564-44C1-97A6-14730D80E807}' failed. The resource 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wps\ShellEx\' does not exist.

After adding “ShellEx” key into the Registry 'HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wps\', my Word Processor shortcut works again.

As to why was the key “ShellEx” missing, I recalled that recently I tried Kingsoft Office, it seemed that this program has taken over the assignment of .wps, and when I uninstall it, the Kingsoft Office had also removed the “ShellEx” key.

Hope this experience will be useful to those that got similar problem.