Problems with Normal.dot in Word 2000

[Trent SC]

A colleague's computer (and therefore one that I've not been able to sit in
front of and examine closely) is displaying problems in Word. It's a clean
in stall of XP Pro with Office 2000, although I copied the old Windows ME
files onto a separate folder on the C drive.

The problem is best described in this extract from the email from my
colleague: "I opened Word this evening to be met by the message 'The file
Normal already exists. Do you want to replace the existing file?'. When you
go to close Word it says' Changes have been made that affect the global
template, Normal.dot, do you want to save those changes'. The problem with
this is that when you have been creating or working on a document and this
Normal template problem arise it loses all the unsaved material and you have
to start again."

Can anyone shed any light on what I might be able to advise to solve this
problem?

TIA

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This sort of behavior is usually caused by a misbehaving/poorly written
add-in. The two most notorious culprits are the Office Plug-in in Norton
AntiVirus (which can be disabled without compromising your virus protection)
and the Microsoft Works Suite Add-in for Word, which should be uninstalled
unless you plan to start Word from within Works and use its special
templates.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Having fixed the problems Suzanne has indicated - see
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm.
Rename normal.dot to oldnormal.dot. Word will build a new one. Use the
organizer to copy any personalisations from old to new.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[Bob C]

Hi Suzanne, and thank you for your helpful reply.

This is a clean installation on a newly-formatted hard drive, so there
aren't any plug-ins that I have deliberately installed. It's running the
free edition of AVG rather than Norton, and the only thing I can think of is
that I copied the old Windows ME system and data files into a separate
backup folder on the C drive.

 

[PopS]

Hi Suzanne, and thank you for your helpful reply.

This is a clean installation on a newly-formatted
hard drive, so there aren't any plug-ins that I have
deliberately installed. It's running the free
edition of AVG rather than Norton, and the only thing
I can think of is that I copied the old Windows ME
system and data files into a separate backup folder
on the C drive.

....

Not sure about the latest versions, but I did, a couple
years ago when I had to do a complete rebuild, do a
complete dup copy of my boot drive to another hard
drive, and the installation routines found it, mistook
it, and botched the install but without telling me that
I ever noticed. It was an "easy" way to be sure I
didn't lose anything and faster than a normal backup at
that time (no more!).
I finally turned that drive off in my CMOS settings,
and it solved the problem, after some head-scratching.

Not sure this is your problem, but ... for whatever
mileage you might get out of it.

HTH,

Pop

 

[Trent SC]

A colleague's computer (and therefore one that I've not been able to sit in

front of and examine closely) is displaying problems in Word. It's a clean
in stall of XP Pro with Office 2000, although I copied the old Windows ME
files onto a separate folder on the C drive.

The problem is best described in this extract from the email from my
colleague: "I opened Word this evening to be met by the message 'The file
Normal already exists. Do you want to replace the existing file?'. When
you go to close Word it says' Changes have been made that affect the
global template, Normal.dot, do you want to save those changes'. The
problem with this is that when you have been creating or working on a
document and this Normal template problem arise it loses all the unsaved
material and you have to start again."

Can anyone shed any light on what I might be able to advise to solve this
problem?

Update - and apologies for replying to my own post - bad form!

The exact error message is as follows: "Word encountered file corruption
while opening C:\documents and settings\...\Normal.dot. Part of this
document may be recoverable. Attempt recovery now? Yes/No"
My colleague clicked on yes, and a clean page appeared. He reported that
this was the first time it had happened since we last spoke. He had not
typed anything on the document so could not tell whether it would have saved
it or not.

I see a few references to known issues in Word 2000, but I would be
eternally grateful if someone could shed some light on this bizarre issue.
Is it limited to Office 2000, for example? Can we get rid of the issue by
upgrading to Office 2003?

TIA

 

[Graham Mayor]

This is typical behaviour caused by orphaned temp files following a crash -
see my previous reply.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

 

[Bob C]

Thanks for the suggestion, which we tried - there aren't any orphaned temp
files!