Every time that you start Microsoft Office Word 2003, the Getting Started task pane appears.

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There are two solutions to this problem.

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Solution 1

1.	Quit all Microsoft Word programs that are running including WordMail.
2.	Start Word 2003.
3.	On the Tools menu, click Options.
4.	On the View tab, click to clear the Startup Task Pane check box.
5.	Quit Word 2003.

When you start Word 2003 the next time, the task pane should not appear. If it does, go to Solution 2.

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Solution 2

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

1.	Quit Word 2003. If you use Word as your e-mail editor, also quit Microsoft Outlook.
2.	Click Start, and then click Run.
3.	In the Run box, type REGEDIT, and then click OK.
4.	Locate the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\General
5.	Right-click the DoNotDismissFileNewTaskPane key, and then click Delete.
6.	Click OK to confirm that you want to delete the DoNotDismissFileNewTaskPane key.

When you start Word the next time, Word will respect the task pane setting. If the task pane is still appearing, follow the steps in Solution 1 to make sure that the setting is turned off in the user interface.

The following registry value corresponds to this setting:

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