Suddenly I cannot open OpenOffice icon on desktop

[onenicelady]

I love using open office and have used it for years. This is my first experience with it not working at all. So I go to google and ask why does open office not open? I dont get a straight answer. then I try to uninstall, that is not going to happen because it shows a window stating that open office is open when its not open and to close it. How do I close it. I read some answers which make no sense to me. I am not a programmer, I am only someone who uses the internet and writes letters using open office. So I read you could download this software to remove open office and I found the free version on google and downloaded it and opened and highlighted and cliked uninstall, it found files which I checked and deleted. and guess what it looked like it was uninstalled but it is not uninstalled. So I will try one more thing, shuting down my computer and then restarting to see if that works if not.
you need to speak in plain english how I can get open office to work or close or uninstall. I go to control panel to uninstall programs have never had
a problem like this.

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

If you really want to work with OpenOffice, then reset your OpenOffice user profile.
Else, you should install LibreOffice instead. It is under much more active development and it better integrates with Windows.

What you see on your desktop may be the installation files that remained.

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the 🖉 button if your issue has been fixed.

[onenicelady]

so I am supposed to know how to reset the user file, with no access to the user file where ever that was in the first place.
I will just purchase microsoft word and use that. I have used open office for many many years with no problem until now.
I have a brand new computer that works fine with no problems. All my other programs work fine flawlessly. After seeing all
the responses, its obvious there is something wrong with the problem from the start. Since I downloaded it on my new laptop.
I was never planning to uninstall until I discovered that you cannot uninstall it, or the files. So now I do not have confidence in open office.
I will get it off my computer when I call dell tommorow. There is a way for it to be uninstalled and they know since they made this laptop
Usually when you download and try to reinstall it will replace the existing version. Its obvious you have a bug and you need to fix that, and make sure that uninstalling will solve the problem, not a window saying close the program that is not open.

[LastUnicorn]

Of late there have been multiple posts to this forum with people having problems with OpenOffice on Windows 10 and 11 systems. Often times the problem gets solved by people just switching to LibreOffice. There are good reasons nowadays for people to make that switch, some of them are explained here: [Tutorial] Considering a Switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice? Some Useful Information

[Hagar Delest]

Its obvious you have a bug and you need to fix that, and make sure that uninstalling will solve the problem

Actually, this forum is managed by volunteers on their free time. We are not part of the Apache OpenOffice project itself.

To remove a program, go to the Windows start menu, then in the parameters and the applications, select OpenOffice and select for removal. There may be some processes still running. In this case, open the task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and kill all soffice.bin processes you could see (only if the removal fails, telling the application is still open).

[DianaJ]

This suddenly happened to me too. It was like it was running but not opening.

Task manager did not show it running but I kept thinking it still kind of seemed like it was but the sheet was just not visible. It was working fine yesterday, then today I ran an update of something else and suddenly this issue arose with OpenOffice.

Finally, I went to Task Manager AGAIN, opened the details section (on mine it was a small button at the bottom of the square). Then I was able to see the processes tab. When I scrolled down, I saw Open Office in the running processes. I closed everything labelled "OpenOffice". After this, I was able to open my files and actually see them.

[kabin7]

To Diana J - Just wanted to thank you for your solution. Did not know about details in Task Manager. Worked for me. Open Office open again.

[RainBirds]

so I am supposed to know how to reset the user file, with no access to the user file where ever that was in the first place.
I will just purchase microsoft word and use that. I have used open office for many many years with no problem until now.
I have a brand new computer that works fine with no problems. All my other programs work fine flawlessly. After seeing all
the responses, its obvious there is something wrong with the problem from the start. Since I downloaded it on my new laptop.
I was never planning to uninstall until I discovered that you cannot uninstall it, or the files. So now I do not have confidence in open office.
I will get it off my computer when I call dell tommorow. There is a way for it to be uninstalled and they know since they made this laptop
Usually when you download and try to reinstall it will replace the existing version. Its obvious you have a bug and you need to fix that, and make sure that uninstalling will solve the problem, not a window saying close the program that is not open..

Dell's support might be helpful, but let's try a clean reinstall of Open Office first. Uninstall it, download the latest version from the official website, and reinstall. Usually, that sorts out bugs. I'm here to help guide you through it if you're up for giving it another shot!

[Hagar Delest]

Dell's support might be helpful, but let's try a clean reinstall of Open Office first. Uninstall it, download the latest version from the official website, and reinstall. Usually, that sorts out bugs. I'm here to help guide you through it if you're up for giving it another shot!

Not at all.
The issue is rarely with the installation. It is either with the profile or the memory usage (hence the task manager check).