Word was crashing, won't reinstall properly, can't upgrade - help!

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Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hi,

Word 2008 was crashing repeatedly on my imac. I got more memory. That didn't solve the problem. I reinstalled the program, but when I started it up for the first time, I got an error message saying Word could not access the database and I should click on database utility. However, I can't find it.
Then I tried to update to 12.1.0, but the set up utility says it cannot find a version of Word on my system. Cannot continue.

Please advise!
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