You receive an error message or the program stops responding when you save a document in Word 2003 (813997)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office Word 2003

SYMPTOMS

When you try to save a Microsoft Office Word 2003 file, Word may stop responding or you may receive one of the following error messages:
There is not enough memory or disk space to complete the operation.
There is insufficient memory or disk space. Close extra windows and save your work.
There is insufficient memory or disk space. Close an application.
(Path\File_name)
This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If this problem persists, contact the program vendor.
Word cannot complete the save due to a file permission error.
(Path\File_name)

CAUSE

This issue may occur if you are working with Word (and other programs for Microsoft Windows), and the Windows page file increases. This increase can be large and can use up most or all the available disk space.

Note This issue has been reported to occur if your computer is running certain versions of antivirus software. This issue may also occur if you are saving to a full floppy disk.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, add more hard disk space either by adding a larger disk drive or by using a disk compression utility.

Note If you are running antivirus software, try turning it off. If this corrects the issue, contact the manufacturer of your antivirus software for an update or workaround.

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, use any of the following methods:
  • You may be able to recover some disk space by quitting programs that you do not need. After you quit the other programs, a few minutes may pass before Windows changes the size of the paging file.
  • You can free disk space by deleting files that you do not need.
    For example, run Disk Cleanup. To do this, follow these steps:

    Note Disk Cleanup is available in Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), Microsoft Windows 2000, and Microsoft Windows XP.
    1. Click Start, point to Programs (in Windows XP, point to All Programs), point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup.
    2. In the Select Drive dialog box, click to select the drive that you want to clean up for example, C:\, and then click OK.
    3. On the Disk Cleanup tab, click to select each of the options for which you want to remove files.
    4. Click OK.
  • You may be able to save your file to a floppy disk drive or network drive.
  • You can try to save to a different floppy disk that has free disk space.
For additional information about the Disk Cleanup tool, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

310312 Description of the Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows XP

186099 Description of the Disk Cleanup Tool

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:3/23/2006
Keywords:kbPerformance kbBug kberrmsg kbprb KB813997 kbAudEndUser
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