ok that is a bit of an issue - i will have to wait a while to do that one im on a network pc for work and i would have to rename mine and pull everything down again - i will post as soon as i am able to do so

OK sorry for the delay in getting you a response. I created a new local profile, I made sure that I did not pull any of the application data over and I am still having the same issue. Moreover office is still reading off of custom09.dic and there was no new custom dictionary created in the "......\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof" folder in the new local profile. Moreover when office is run in a different login it does create a new custom dictionary in the "......\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof". So the issue must be somewhere in my roaming profile, do you know where the data that tells office where to point for custom dictionary is stored?

The path for custom.dic is held in the registry, here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools
...you may also want to do a registry search for custom.dic.

The issue was finally resolved by creating both a new roaming profile and a new local profile. Took forever but its good to go - thx for the TS assist

Marked as Fixed .