Add Word 97 - 2003 entry to the New menu after installing Word 2007

Microsoft Word 2007 adds .docx type to the New menu, which creates an empty .docx file when clicked. There are times when you need to create a document in Word 97 - 2003 format. Let’s assume you need to create a Word document and send it to someone who doesn’t have Word 2007 installed. To add more convenience, the Word 97 - 2003 document entry can be added to the New menu in Windows.

Adding Word 97 - 2003 entry to the New menu

1. Start Regedit.exe
2. Navigate to the following location:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.doc\Word.Document.8\ShellNew
3. From the Edit menu, click New, String value.
4. Name the new String value as Nullfile
5. Exit the Registry Editor.

Registry fix

To automate the above setting, download the file word_shellnew.zip and save to Desktop. Extract the contents to a folder, and double-click the file doc-add-shellnew.reg to run it.
Microsoft Office Word 97 - 2003 Document entry should be added to the New menu. If the entry does not appear immediately, you need to access the New menu a couple of times for the list to refresh automatically.

Note: Regardless of this option, you can open Microsoft Word 2007 and choose Word 97-2003 type in the Save dialog box to save documents in older (.doc) format.

MISCELLANEOUS .REG FILES

Inside the Zip file, there are three other .REG files. Here is a description of each file.

Filename Description
doc-add-shellnew.reg Add Word 97 - 2003 entry to New menu
doc-remove-shellnew.reg Remove Word 97 - 2003 entry from New menu
docx-add-shellnew.reg Add Word 2007 (.docx) entry to New menu
docx-remove-shellnew.reg Remove Word 2007 (.docx) entry from New Menu