Thanks, that was such a simple fix. I've been putting up with that stupid error message for ages.

Update Word works
 

Hi all, this may a bit late for this thread but wanted to say that I had same issue with Word 2004 11.2. Before trying to trash the User Data as done by post#10, I updated Word to v 11.5.4. The error message is gone! So you might want to try this - make sure your Word has the latest updates. cheers.

This works!
 

I have spent an entire day reviewing this problem--Word kept crashing and took everything with it. I already tried school tech support, tech company, and numerous web sites for two weeks. I feel like an expert almost. This is the first logical answer I found--it is simple and it works. The "new" Main Identity doesn't reveal itself until you have removed the other identities by taking them out of the Documents folder. Plus the people on this site seem to be civilized and polite to each other. Thanks!

Thank you Mr.Blueslee !

Delete the folder!
 

I deleted the folder and it works!!!

Thank you SpuriousGrowth!!! This was the only thing that worked!

Renaming the folder worked for me, too -- the problem had come up after cloning my files to a new hard drive using Carbon Copy Cloner.