Pushing Normal.dot via Group Policy

[Guest]

My boss is making filename/path a requirement on all Word Documents.
He does not want this to be a training situation. He wants its pushed or
manually set by IT on all workstations (yeah right).

Here is what I have done.
I created a "Normal.dot" file setup the way he wants it. (this is really
p'ing me off just writing about it).

I copied the file to a network share, and created a batch file to simply
copy the modified Normal.dot file to overwright the existing Normal.dot file
on each users workstation when they login. - this all works fine and they all
receive the modified Normal.dot template.

Problem: users lose the ability of the "Autotext" when this is done. Not
sure what else they lose, but this is a biggie. Many users still need to put
header/footer stuff but are unable to because they are using the modified
template that I pushed out instead of the original that comes with Word.

Tested: If i manually go to a workstation, and make the modifications that
are required, this does not happen. It only happens when pushing via group
policy or coping, not sure where the issue lies, but wondered if there is a
way to do this so that the end users still have full functionality of thier
word.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Okay, where you're getting into trouble is where you're "creating"
Normal.dot. Only Word can do that; see “WD2002: Styles and AutoText Are Not
Copied to New Template Based on Normal.dot†at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=291441. You can open Normal.dot and
modify it and save it, but you are right to be wary of this. The correct
approach is to make specific document templates and save them in a folder on
the network that is set as each user's Workgroup Templates location (Tools |
Options | File Locations). Then instruct users (under pain of dismissal) to
use the prescribed templates. Normal.dot is supposed to be a personally
customizable file; see “You cannot share the Normal.dot file among multiple
users in Word†at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811468, which you may
want to share with your IT department.

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

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all may benefit.

 

[msl00s3r]

What about users rarely in office?

What if your users are on the road most of the time and can not get to the fileserver from their laptops? Is there a way to push out a custom template via group policy that will work regardless of which version of Word users are using? (2000/XP/2003/2007)