Multiple instances of Word launching when opening files from Explorer window

I am seeing an odd behavior with Word 2010 (32 bit) that I could not replicate in earlier versions of Word.

Here are the steps:

Note: When performing these steps, I am on a 32 bit Windows 7 machine. Word is not running yet, and the Task Manager dialog is open with the processes sorted in reverse alpha order so that WinWord.exe will appear at the top.

1. Go to a folder containing a set of word documents or templates (all are in either .docx or .dotx format) in Windows Explorer.
2. Select a group of files (I am selecting 4 .docx files in my tests).
3. Right-click and select Open.
4. Four instances of WINWORD.EXE appear in the Task Manager (one of them then goes away, leaving only three instances running, but I think that's beside the point).

Could someone shed light on why this is happening with Word 2010 and if there's anything that can be done to make it "behave" and open only one instance? 

PS - The templates contain no code, and no add-ins are loaded at the time that I perform these steps. Also, all Word and Office updates have been installed on the machine.

Thanks
Wordyone

November 4th, 2010 1:12am

Hi,

The way both Word and various other programs (like Internet Explorer) work is that they normally run only one instance of their application, but that instance can have multiple windows open. The multiple windows are each main window and so look multiple instances in the taskbar at the bottom.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 5th, 2010 10:24am

But what about the multiple WINWORD.EXE processes in the task manager?  That means there are extra running processes of the Word application, does it not? If I just launch Word and open 4 documents, there is only one WINWORD.EXE instance in the Task Manager.  When doing the steps above, watch the Task Manager dialog box (processes tab) and multiple WINWORD.EXE processes are being spawned.

November 5th, 2010 6:37pm

I must say I do not know the answer to your question, and am only guessing at possibilities, but IE is a bit of a red herring here as it starts a new Process for each new tab - something Word does not do.   If you open multiple Word Documents from Windows Explorer individually do you see the same behaviour?   If you do it suggests the command invoked to open the document uses a switch to force a new instance, something that is not normal. Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to correct that.   If you don't, it suggests something is stopping Word attaching to the existing instance - most likely some code in an AddIn.   In Word 2010 there is another possibility related to Protected View - are the documents you are testing with, ones that open in Protected View?    
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 5th, 2010 9:56pm

Thanks Tony,

I have verified that no add-ins are installed and the documents are not in Protected View.  It does not seem to happen when I separately click and then open each document one by one. 

Also it seems to be a bug specific to Word 2010, because it doesn't happen when I perform same actions with opening documents into Word 2007.

 

November 5th, 2010 10:43pm

I don't yet have 2010 on my main machine and have a tendency to reply to posts about it without actually checking, on the basis that it works and that odd behaviour is a result of environmental variables. But I see now that this is a bug in Word 2010, a fairly low impact one perhaps, but still, clearly, a bug.  
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 6th, 2010 11:17am

I can't offer a solution, but I am having the same problem. If I open 5 Word documents by right-clicking in Windows Explorer, the 1st goes into the current instance of Word, and new instances of Word are started for the other 4 documents. Sometimes I end up with an additional blank document in each new instance. If I open the documents one at a time (by right-clicking) they all go into the existing instance of Word.

I have not yet installed SP2, and wonder if that might solve the issue.

December 6th, 2010 10:30pm

SP2? Office 2010 isn't even at SP1 yet. What version of Word are you seeing this issue with?  
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 7th, 2010 9:50am

It is Word 2010 RTM that is displaying this problem.  Apparently I'm not the only one who has noticed this issue, but seems like it is an undocumented bug with opening files from Explorer window. Hopefully Microsoft will fix it.

Thanks
Wordyone

December 7th, 2010 8:01pm

Thanks, wordyone. You and I see it in 2010, and only 2010. R-B seems to think installing SP2 would fix the issue, so I was wondering what version he was using and seeing the problem with, as it apparently wasn't 2010, and it was him or her that I was addressing in my latest reply.  
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 7th, 2010 8:12pm

PS - I think that this may also be specific to Windows 7 (i.e., not Vista and XP with Office 2010).
December 7th, 2010 10:24pm

I also have a user on Windows 7 with the latest version of Word 2007 that is having the same problem. I'll check her processes and she'll have 4 WINWORD.EXE open even when Word is closed. What is worse is that this somehow effects her copy and paste. It won't copy new items. It will paste something from 4 copies ago. Reinstalling Word temporarily solved the problem. I have deleted the Normal Template folder with no luck. Any help would be greatly appreciate in this matter. 
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 24th, 2011 7:49pm

hiya - i was wondering if you had an update on this issue. it appears SP1 for 2010 doesn't resolve the problem not do any of the windows 7 patches. thanks tons. -kk
August 12th, 2011 8:23pm

Same problem here with Word and Office 2010. Winword32 hangs and sucks up cpu. Also at SP1, all latest updates.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 21st, 2011 1:20pm

Thank you asking this question. I'll research to see if I can provide any additional details.

 

Sincerely,

Susan

Microsoft Community Support

September 16th, 2011 7:37pm

I'm following this thread now as we've encountered the problem:  Win 7, Word 2010-SP1.    Any insights into the issue and any "fixes"?

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
October 6th, 2011 3:12am

i have heard nothing as of yet. -kk
October 6th, 2011 7:13pm

Hello,

I have done some research on this issue. I wanted to let you know that it has been reported to our Products group, but currently there is no resolution available. Thank you for your inquiry.

Sincerely,

Ross

Microsoft Word Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 3rd, 2011 8:23pm

OK. I just upgraded from Office 2003 to 2010 last week, and have been plagued by this problem of multiple instances of WinWord (4, to be exact) running in the background ever since. This seems to happen even if neither Word nor Outlook are opened (but perhaps after they have been run and closed...). The problem is that those instances will consumes 100% of the CPU usage. This is occurring on an HP 6000Pro desktop computer running under the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Pro.

Any suggestions / fixes would be appreciated.

Thanks

Phil

November 6th, 2011 11:17pm

Thank you for following up on this, Ross.

For future reference, is there a more direct way of reporting something like this -- i.e., some other MS website better for reporting bugs directly to the Office group?

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 8th, 2011 8:00pm

While not confirmed from the product team, from what I have understood this is actually a desi
December 5th, 2011 7:13pm

wait ... you mean this was done on purpose?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 5th, 2011 7:30pm

Hello, I'm concerned as well to hear that this might be a design change. This does not make sense. If you are opening several documents from Windows Explorer you don't want 10 or 20 sessions or Word starting up. Please tell us that you will "undo" or that there will be an option for us to turn that feature off.
January 6th, 2012 8:40pm

This is indeed a problem that seems to have several ways to get it started.  Take a look at this thread for more examples. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/outlook/thread/c4aeaf6c-f18d-4f92-acfe-2204f24d426d/

The hung WINWORD.EXE processes quickly consume all available CPU and must be terminated manually.

I don't buy the response that this is a design intent.  I can understand the behavior of separate instances when opening files in Protected View but normal use shouldn't have multiple processes.  Further when the calling process shuts down, the WINWORD.exe process should be shut down not left hanging (and consuming lots of cpu to boot).

Pat Ryan

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 12th, 2012 12:06am

Yes, I too am having all the same problems highlighted already with Word 2010 (32 bit) with multiple instances of Windword.exe. Additional to what has been mentioned above, if I select say 10 files in Windows Exploer and right click / print in order to print them all with 'one action', it often errors out. It seems this might also be linked to Word trying to open a new instance of Winword.exe for each print and then close it down again. Temporary soluton is to open all the documents up from a single Word session (File / Open) and print each document individually (from the quick access toolbar, I quick print and then close each document - I sometimes have to print 50 - 100 documents!) There needs to be fix for this - talk about a backward step. At our next IT meeting, I'm going to suggest a roll back to Office 2007 where neither of these problems occured until a fix is issued for 2010.

Mike

January 31st, 2012 8:02pm

Mickle01--

I am having the multiple instances of WINDWORD.EXE in processes and I'm on Word 2007 so downgrading might not fix your issue. We are using Windows 7 64-bit with Office 2007 installed. It all worked fine under XP. Now attorneys are telling me they can't copy and paste from IE to Word or Word to Outlook. I go into their process view and see multiple instances of WINWORD.EXE open. When I close them all, copy and paste works fine then for a few hours. Also another bug that I have in Word 2007 on Windows 7 is the preview pane not working when trying to view Word Docs. Microsoft tells me to go into Explorer to preview. Ridiculous it doesn't work in Word. 

Might go back to XP. The preview pane people can live with as stupid as it is but the cut and paste, multiple WINWORD.EXE bug is terrible. 

Please Microsoft fix these issues. Telling us to upgrade to 2010 isn't a fix. We bought 2007. 

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 2nd, 2012 11:45pm

Also when I preview a PDF in Word, which used to work, Word tells me "This file can't be previewed because of an error in the PDF Preview Handler for Vista".

 

I'm on Windows 7. 

 

You guys at Microsoft are getting lazy. 

February 3rd, 2012 12:03am

I also have the same behaviour in my installation (Win7 32 bit, Office 2010, all patches applied), when I select and click to open multiple files to which I want to do a series of similar, systematic changes in a row.

One side-effect of multiple instances opened is that if I try to repeat the last command (Ctrl-Y) in another document, it will not work - because it is a separate instance (process). The same thing applies to changes to the Normal template - it will always keep the version of the latest document (process) I close, and I might lose any customization I did when running of of the various instances.

If this was a design decision (as commented in an earlier posting above), it was a bad one IMHO. Even if this speeds up launching open a batch of documents, I have seen more problems than benefits.

One workaround that seems to work is, you open an instance of Word (with *no active document open*), then select the documents you want to open, and drag-and-drop into the Word window. This seems to force a single instance to be used. (Do not drag-and-drop into a window that has an open document, or the default action is do embed into the open document the files you are dropping...).



Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 3rd, 2012 10:33am

Any ideas SusanBu? Last we heard you were going to check with the Office Team about this. 
February 9th, 2012 5:15pm

Having just upgraded from Word 2003 to Word 2010 I find this very frustrating.   I thought new software was supposed to get better not worse.

Strangely (and fortunately) it does not happen in Excel (although I thought Office was supposed to work consistently).

Be glad to hear any answers.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 1st, 2012 3:34am

"GlenSydney" wrote in message news:29e28404-526e-43dd-bd84-e057ba251070@communitybridge.codeplex.com...
Having just upgraded from Word 2003 to Word 2010 I find this very frustrating.   I thought new software was supposed to get better
March 1st, 2012 10:17pm

Thanks.

In respect to your first suggestion, I knew that one and already had cleared that box.

In respect to your second suggestion, Negative, when I open 4 Word files through a My Computer window I see 4 versions of winword.exe in the Processes tab of Task Manager.

Pretty silly if you ask me.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 2nd, 2012 2:17am

"GlenSydney" wrote in message news:86512589-a01d-4a09-b75e-3aea69555011@communitybridge.codeplex.com...
In respect to your second suggestion, Negative, when I open 4 Word files through a My Computer window I see 4 versions of winword.exe in the Processes tab of Task Manager.   Pretty silly if y
March 2nd, 2012 2:32am

um ... no offense stefan, but we're all having this problem on windows 7 with word 2010.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 2nd, 2012 3:00am

um ... no offense stefan, but we're all having this problem on windows 7 with
March 2nd, 2012 3:15am

um ... no offense stefan, but we're all having this problem on windows 7 with
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 2nd, 2012 10:21am

"Simao Campos" wrote in message news:de32d65f-055d-4cda-9870-a6388186224f@communitybridge.codeplex.com...
There is a better work-around, see my post above of Friday, February 03, 2012 7:33 AM. Basically the workaround is, have one instance of Word 2010 running but without any open document. Then drag-and-drop the documents you want to open into that open, document-less Word window. Only one instance is created
March 2nd, 2012 10:55pm

"Simao Campos" wrote in message news:de32d65f-055d-4cda-9870-a6388186224f@communitybridge.codeplex.com...
There is a better work-around, see my post above of Friday, February 03, 2012 7:33 AM. Basically the workaround is, have one instance of Word 2010 running but without any open document. Then drag-and-drop the documents you want to open into that open, document-less Word window. Only one instance is created
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 3rd, 2012 10:31am

"Simao Campos" wrote in message news:de32d65f-055d-4cda-9870-a6388186224f@communitybridge.codeplex.com...
... drag-an
March 3rd, 2012 12:14pm

"GlenSydney" wrote in message news:1ac328bf-df21-4587-9eb8-4dadaad4d61a@communitybridge.codeplex.com...
Thank you, these are all nice suggestions but they do not help me and they do not overcome what is looking like an obvious mistake in Word 2010.   (I run on Windows XP by the way).   I run most program windows full screen or close to full screen and dont have room to drag and drop between Windows.   I also dont want to have to close every other Word document before I open some more.&n
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 3rd, 2012 3:30pm

Hi

I am by far no expert on Word but I did something that may have solved the problem.  I first started noticing a problem because my job calls for me to have several documents opened at once on my computer and we had all just updated from 2007 to 2010.  Every once in a while I would go back to the folder and accidentally click on a document that was already opened.  This would cause a new instance of Word 2010 to open and I would get the "File in use by 'another user'" (me) error.

This was rediculously annoying since prior versions of Word would just bring the already opened file to the forefront of the desktop.  Once I came across this article I realized that every time I opened a new document a new instance of WINWORD.EXE would open too.  I came to the conclusion (and maybe I was wrong as I have such limited knowledge) that every time a new process of WINWORD.EXE was started, it would be considered 'another user' and thats why it would lock the document if I tried to open an already opened file.  Finally, I had previously read in other threads on the subject of "File in use by 'another user'" error that this was a problem in Word 2003.

After reading this thread I started playing around with Word Options and found that if you go into "Advanced" under Options and go all the way to the bottom and you will see "Lay out this document as if created in:"  For some reason, my default layout was for Word 2003.  Once I changed it from 2003 to 2010, multiple instances of WINWORD.EXE stopped showing up and I was able to open all documents under one instance.  Better yet, I stopped getting the  "File in use by 'another user'" error.

I have no why this worked or if this was even the reason but I just wanted to let you all know because maybe you can explain it or it will shed some light on the problem which will lead you to the correct reason.  Either way, hope I helped.

April 19th, 2012 9:09pm

Thanks Wordyone - didn;t help in my case.

I experience the multiple instances of Word 2007 opening under Windows 7 at work. My problem is exacerbated by our electronic document management system (EDMS). People send links to documents in the EDMS, rather than copies of the document itself. The links are hyperlinks and do not provide location information about the document within the EDMS. The consequence is that I can only open the document using File...Open within Word, if I already know where the document is within the EDMS and can navigate to it. In most cases, this is not the case. So, usually, I have to double click on the link, which opens a new instance of Word - EVERY TIME.

The consequences of this problem are further exacerbated as, in my work environment, Word automatically opens a number of templates containing macros that are part of the Word operating environment in our standard desktop. This results in error messages EVERY TIME a second (third, fourth, etc.) instance of Word is opened and further errors EVERY TIME a second (third, fourth, etc.) instance of Word is closed. The errors arise because Word is trying to use or save a template that is already opened in the first instance of Word. At best, it takes me 5 mouse clicks to close the second instance of Word instead of 1.

This is highly frustrating and tremendously inefficient. The fact that this behaviour can be controlled in Excel (where the DDE option can be used to control it) and I have not experienced it with PowerPoint nor with Visio, suggests it is not a design intention. However, given the other significant design problems in Office 2007, I may be mistaken in this conclusion.

I strongly urge the Microsoft people in a position to fix this to do so as a matter of urgency. I have already started switching to OpenOffice Writer, at home.


Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 29th, 2012 6:48am

This looks like being the solution to this problem.

I just found reference to a related issue in Word, with a discussion of how DDE operations for Word are controlled through the Registry. That reference is in this blog article - http://www.withinwindows.com/2008/08/31/taming-microsoft-word-2007s-file-associations-and-document-windows-part-one/. It actually refers to a method for creating the situation we have experienced when Word always opens new documents in teh same instance instead of creating a new instance.

Based on this article, I checked the default DDE behaviour in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec key in the Windows Registry. I found the default value was set to "[REM_DDE_EXEC][FileOpen(%1)]". I changed this key's default value to "[FileOpen(%1)]".

Word now behaves itself, opening each new Word document in the existing instance of Word when I double click on it. It even works with emailed links to our EDMS!

I have been trying to find a solution for months. Hallelujah!

May 29th, 2012 7:09am

Pierre Phillippe,

I'm also experincing this issue but do not have the ddeexec key in my registry to modify.  I'd be grateful if you'd let me know the key type and exactly how it's laid out as I'd like to see if this will solve the issue.

Cheers.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 1st, 2012 1:10am

i believe that he is suggesting that we add the key ... however i have two keys at the 'command' level, and neither of them have 'dde'

see screenshot. the command key is actually hex.

so do you still think i should add a 'dde' key with the %1 even though i have the %1 and no dde?

keys found in [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\command]

August 1st, 2012 2:14am

Thanks peebs7384!  This worked for me!! Bless you!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 5th, 2012 12:57pm

Thank you much for the solution! I'm having the same issue but am having a hard time getting the exact reg settings to get it resolved.

I have tried many variations of the default command and command key and created the ddeexec key with the default value of "[FileOpen(%1)]". No matter what combos I try of these three reg values. I'm still having the issue. Would it be possible to post screen shots of exactly how you have the registry configured to resolve this

August 7th, 2012 8:56pm

I've got it working right in our environment, finally! The issue was that the Word.Document.12 hive only applies to .docx extensions and since we are working in a mixed environment of .doc and .docx file we had to also change the Word.Document.8 hive. I've copied the reg hacks below in case anyone needs the exact context.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open]
@="&Open"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\WINWORD.EXE\" /n  /dde"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
@="[REM _DDE_Direct][FileOpen(\"%1\")]"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\Application]
@="WinWord"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\Topic]
@="System"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open]
@="&Open"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\WINWORD.EXE\" /n  /dde"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\ddeexec]
@="[REM _DDE_Direct][FileOpen(\"%1\")]"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\Application]
@="WinWord"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\Topic]
@="System"

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 17th, 2012 1:04am

check this link this may help you out

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/multiple-instances-of-word-when-opening-documents/5dca0bf2-7e50-4f89-a9b9-6d1d07f62a84?msgId=e475f8fd-956a-4d08-9ca9-bca2c43ed466

August 17th, 2012 1:04pm

091012DEC12

Here is another point being missed regarding the issue of "nes instance" of MS Word 2010 opening for each document, besides more RAM usage....more real estate wasted on the Windoze (mis-spelled on purpose) task bar, or desktop managers such as ALT DESK.

I followed the steps above clear the Show all windows in the Taskbar option at File tab | Options | Advanced" which gives me only one instance of MS Word regardless of the number of documents I have open at the time, BUT I have not found a good way to navigate from document to document, YES I can minimize the document Window, but and stack the documents, but this seems quite archaic, like Win 3.1, compared to MS Word 2007 and older.

Craig Knapp

age 51

anonymous posting is for wimps!

craig.knapp1@yahoo.com

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 9th, 2012 12:15pm

"Craig Knapp" wrote in message news:0633aac4-fdee-45dd-90be-52a89546ca3d@communitybridge.codeplex.com...
I followed the steps above clear the Show all windows in the Taskbar option at File tab | Options | Advanced" which gives me only one instance of MS Word regardless of the number of documents I have open at the time, BUT I have not found a good way to navigate from document to document, YES I can minimize the document Window, but and stack the documents, but this seems quite archaic, like Win 3.1, compared to MS Word 2007 and older.
December 9th, 2012 3:32pm

Thank you for sharing this fix. The registry key(s) shown in kit_jj's post for modifying DDE behavior did not resolve the issue for me. It did change the opening behavior in that Word doesn't open multiple instances any longer. But now, only the first document that I have selected opens--the others do not open at all.  Has anyone else had definite success with the registry key workarounds? If so, can you tell me what exactly you changed?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 6th, 2013 8:46pm

Hi Pierre Phillippe,

As more and more of our customers are having problems with this 'feature', I wanted to thank you for the solution you proposed/referred to.

I see this thread already runs for 2 years, and no MVP can come up with this ?

Therefore, Merci beaucoup !

July 9th, 2013 5:54am

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics