Problem with Office 2004 (mac)

Here is the problem its my wife's macbook. I have office 2004 on it all was fine now when she clicks on any of the office icons in the dock it crashes. It will work fine if you open any of the office apps from an doc that has been saved or a spreadsheet that has been saved.

Things I have done: reinstall, same thing
uninstall-reinstall- same thing
remove all microsoft folders, uninstall- reinstall- same

Any ideas?

Try quitting all your office applications and remove the icons from the dock. Open the programs through Finder and drag them back onto the dock. Quit again and try opening the apps from the dock.

Also, it could have to do with how much RAM the macbook has. I'm not sure how much is needed, but it would probably be a good idea to have at least 1 GB of RAM. Office programs (specifically 2008) tend to be rather memory-intensive.

-Nik