I am having a strange problem with two merge documents that I have
used many times in the past. At various points in the merge process
(sometimes as early as just loading the document) Word 2003 locks and
offers apologies that it must close. After this happened a couple of
times I dug out my Office 2003 disk and repaired the installation. The
next merge worked normally, but subsequent merges fail in the same
manner. I checked for updates and Microsoft Update reports that Vista
is current. (I was unable to find Office Service Pack 3 in the lengthy
list of installed updates, but I assume it is there somewhere).

I then went to an XP machine that had the same files on it from months
ago (and has also done merges uneventfully in the past). It exhibits
the same problem of failing at various points in the process. I
updated Office on that machine with Service Pack 3 and the problem
remains.

It's almost as if there was an update to either office or the OS that
broke the merge process.

Any ideas, anyone????

    -Harry