This problem wasnt life-threatening but sudden problems in the home / office computer really bug me a lot. Recently the office system was afflicted :p with MS word problems.

Older files did not open in MS word, normal.dot file kept on asking to be replaced/changed. Similar issues in MS Outlook (which uses MS word as the editor).

Finally i got hold of this link which helped solve the problem at the 2nd step only.

Thanks to the author!