MS Word Trouble

A few weeks ago whenever I attempted to open a file in Word by going to the Open menu, the program would freeze and I would send an error report. Eventually I decided to click on the link you sometimes get after you submit the report and was directed to a Microsoft page that told me to download some updates. I did and it worked fine for awhile.

Now all of a sudden whenever I go to the Open or Save As menu, I can not change the folder. I click on that little arrow to get to the folder with the file I want and the program freezes every time. I downloaded more updates but it keeps on freezing. What is going on?

Can anybody help?

Jam it back in, in the dark.