Microsoft Office 2007 is a powerful suite of applications that can help you manage your work and personal life. However, like any other software, Office 2007 can become damaged over time. If you notice that one of your Office 2007 applications is not working as it should, there are a few things you can do to try and fix the problem. The first step is to try and determine which application is not working. You can do this by opening the application and checking to see if the buttons are responding or if the application is opening at all. If you are unable to determine which application is not working, you can try to repair the application by following these steps:

  1. Open Microsoft Office 2007 and click on File > Options > Advanced > General.
  2. In the General section, under Application Management, click on Repair All Applications.
  3. In the Repair All Applications window, select the applications that you want to repair and click on Repair Selected. If repairing an application does not fix the problem, then it may be necessary to reinstall Microsoft Office 2007 altogether. ..

At my workplace we are running Office 2003 and when a crash or problem occurs it means wasting time hunting down the problem, doing a repair installation, or doing a complete uninstall/reinstall of the office suite. 

Windows Office 2007 has a new feature (which replaces detect and repair) which allows you to diagnose and repair problems when they occur in your daily tasks.  The diagnostic utility will check the Windows system event log, hard drive, memory, application compatibility, updated service packs, and Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) if your hard drive supports it.  I know it sounds like a lot, but let me show you how easy this is to run.

Start \ Programs \ Microsoft Office \ Microsoft Office Tools \ Microsoft Office Diagnostics

The Microsoft Office Diagnostics splash screen will open.  Click Continue.

Next you are presented with the Start Diagnostics Screen showing you what is going to be checked and the status of each diagnostic.  When you are ready click Run Diagnostics.

While the Diagnostics run you will see the status bars as each tests completes.  When it’s complete hit Continue.

You will get a limited detail of what was fixed.  In this example all 5 diagnostic tests ran and one problem was identified and fixed.  If you ok with that just close out and you are done.  If you want to get additional information click on “Detailed results”.

When you look close at the detailed information in this example you can see there was a problem with the installation and this tool automatically fixed it.

Unfortunately for an administrator or power user this utility “as is” does not display specific results (you need to do more digging ).  However when you are in a hurry and need your applications up and running to finish your work Microsoft Office Diagnostics works great!