This may be unrelated but I've just hit some snags whilst setting up a new server 2012 (from server 2008-) I've also updated my version of Word - I have an office 365 license.
Anyway, I had some really old word .doc files in the system which when attempting to use them in AwareIM froze the system. It would appear that newer versions of Word open older Word docs in Read Only mode so the attribute merging inside the doc was failing. I had to manually open each doc, do a "Save AS" then delete the original and rename the new doc. A real ball ache but I got there in the end.
Like I said, might not be the same as your issue, but If your app worked before and only just started misbehaving, I would tend to suspect WORD rather than AIM
