Hmmm,

I was under the impression that when the application prompted for safe mode it was either "yes" or it exited? It would seem to go against the whole concept if it let you open an unstable system in normal mode?

Microsoft touted the idea that it would let you continue working safely until you fixed the problem.

I think I now have an idea of the probable cause. It is my Wife's machine and she was going through one of those CD based Office courses. Now the CD is interactive read only, and for Office 2000.

OK, office XP can handle that in its natural environment, but may well have been confused by the CD medium which it couldn't offer to convert?