“There was a problem sending the command to the program” error in Word

Select options in the menu

This error happens when opening a file in word or the other Microsoft Office programs.

This seems to be a problem with an Microsoft Add-In that has been installed.

To fix this there are two options. The first is to disable office add-ins.

You can disable the office add-ins by:

  • Open the program (in this case Microsoft Word)
  • Select File -> Options
  • Select Add-Ins in the options menu
  • Disable them in this menu

If that doesn’t work you will need to recreate the user profile

To recreate the user profile on a domain you will need to :

  • Log in as a different Administrative user(Must be a member of the local administrators group)
  • Backup the User profile
  • Right click on “My Computer” and select properties
  • Go to the Advanced tab
  • Click the “Settings” button under user profiles
  • Select the user profile that has the error and delete it
  • Reboot the PC
  • Log in as the user
  • Restore data back to the user account

To recreate the user profile that is not on a domain you will need to :

  • Log in as a different Administrative user(Must be a member of the local administrators group)
  • Backup the User profile
  • Right click on “My Computer” and select properties
  • Go to the Advanced tab
  • Click the “Settings” button under user profiles
  • Select the user profile that has the error and delete it
  • Reboot the PC
  • Log in as the administrative user
  • Create a new user account for the deleted account
  • Log in as the new user
  • Restore data back to the user account

Now when you open Microsoft Word you shouldn’t have the “There was a problem sending the command to the program” Error.