The issue isn't that Word won't work reliably with USB sticks but that users don't!

If you don't want to suffer data corruption, especially with Word documents, make sure you always go through the safe removal process. Better still, copy the files to the HDD, work on them there, then copy the finished product back to the USB stick. That way you'll have a backup as well.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]