Basic Normal.dot question

[Bob Stringer]

If I open Normal.dot and then immediately close it, I get
this message even though I haven't typed anything: "Changes
have been made that affect the global template, Normal.dot.
Do you want to save those changes?"

Is that normal? Why is the template changing even though I
haven't done anything except open and close it?

Thanks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If this is Word 2002 or above, see "WD2002: You Are Prompted to Save Changes
When You Close a Document Even Though You Have Made No Changes" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=816473

--
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.

 

[Bob Stringer]

If this is Word 2002 or above, see "WD2002: You Are Prompted to Save Changes
When You Close a Document Even Though You Have Made No Changes" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=816473

Sorry, I forgot to mention: it's Word 2000 (running on
WinXP).

I looked at the article, just to be sure it didn't apply to
Word 2000 as well. Earlier I ran a search on the MS site,
but just to be sure, I took the title of the article you
mentioned and ran it for Word 2000, and nothing relevant
turned up.

Any other ideas?

By the way, it occurs to me that this problem *seems* (but I
can't say for certain) to have started after I installed
Enfish Find, which is a search program and which, among
other things, puts an unrequested "Enfish toolbar" in Word
-- which I turned off. Having thought of it, I suspect
Enfish may well be the culprit, though I don't know enough
to go beyond suspicions. I don't want to uninstall Enfish,
since it's a great product, so if it's the culprit, I don't
mind having to click an extra button to get rid of the
message I asked about. But I do wonder whether normal.dot
changing as reported is something to be concerned about.
And, of course, Enfish might not be the culprit, although I
can't think of any other possibly relevant changes on my
system.

Thanks very much.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

You may get advice to change your settings so you no longer see this
message. That can be done but this is like advice to take the batteries out
of your three smoke detectors because they keep buzzing and you don't know
why. It is essential that you have a good virus detection/elimination
program on your computer if you are connected to the Internet. (but see the
third paragraph about Norton AV)

The message "Changes have been made that affect the global template -
normal. Do you wish to save those changes?" is an important warning. It
suppplements your virus detector and handles other potential problems. Its
display means that changes have been made, whether you intended to make
changes or not. You can also get it when your template has been altered by a
poorly written Add-In program or by a virus.

The reason for the message being shown repeatedly is almost always a poorly
written Add-In. The Norton AV Office Plug-In seems to be the most frequent
offender recently, but that can change as some other poorly written program
comes on the market.

Other offenders include the MS Works Suite Add-In, EZ-Photo, Scansoft, and
Adobe Acrobat. These all install Add-Ins that mess with your normal.dot when
they shouldn't do so and don't need to do so. Some of these are .dot files,
others are installed. See <URL:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm> for
instructions on seeing what Add-Ins you have. (Having Add-Ins is not a bad
thing. I run Word with 15 Add-Ins, most of which I wrote myself.)

Start with the Add-Ins I've noted. If you have any of them, decide whether
they are worth the annoyance they are causing you. Probably they are not.
Disable any that are not worth the candle. Restart Word and see if your
problem is gone.

If not...

If you start Word using
Start => Run: Winword.exe /a
you'll end up with Word out of the box loading without your saved normal.dot
file, with no macros and no Add-Ins. You may notice that it loads much more
quickly than you are used to seing. When you close it, you won't get the
"normal.dot" prompt. Doing this may fix the problem, by itself, but probably
will not. Generally, it is a diagnostic, not a fix.

So, what you need to do is disable all of your Add-Ins (don't delete them).
Start by moving .dot files out of your Word Startup folder, one-by-one, with
Word closed. Restart Word and see if that Add-In caused the problem. If not,
put it back in and take the next one out. (You can put them in a sub-folder
of your Startup folder.) If none of them are the problem, move to the .com
Add-Ins that have to be uninstalled.

If your offender is not on my list, please write back and let us know which
one caused your problems.

Write to the company that put out the Add-In with a complaint, and possibly
a bill for your time.

Hope this helps,
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
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from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Bob Stringer]

[snip]

That helped a lot, Charles.

Your message obviously crossed with my response to Suzanne.
As you can see there, it occurred to me that a program I had
installed around the same time as the problem started
installed a new toolbar. Your message reinforces my
suspicion.

Unlike Adobe Acrobat, the Enfish toolbar doesn't appear to
work on the basis of a .dot file, however, and how it does
its job on Word isn't clear to me. (Thankfully, also unlike
Acrobat, once the toolbar is turned off through the View
menu it stays off. With Acrobat I had to rename the .dot
file, disabling the new toolbar in order to get it out of my
hair).

I'm sending a message to the Enfish people to find out what
they have to say.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Follow the link I gave you. It shows you how to find Add-Ins in Word 2000+
that don't show up under Templates and Add-Ins or in the Startup folder.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

[snip]

That helped a lot, Charles.

Your message obviously crossed with my response to Suzanne.
As you can see there, it occurred to me that a program I had
installed around the same time as the problem started
installed a new toolbar. Your message reinforces my
suspicion.

Unlike Adobe Acrobat, the Enfish toolbar doesn't appear to
work on the basis of a .dot file, however, and how it does
its job on Word isn't clear to me. (Thankfully, also unlike
Acrobat, once the toolbar is turned off through the View
menu it stays off. With Acrobat I had to rename the .dot
file, disabling the new toolbar in order to get it out of my
hair).

I'm sending a message to the Enfish people to find out what
they have to say.

Thanks for the advice.
--
Bob Stringer

To reply by e-mail please replace
"NotHere" with "spamcop" in my address

 

[Graham Mayor]

See http://www.gmayor.com/lose_that_adobe_acrobat_toolbar.htm on how to
manage the Adobe toolbar, whilst still being able to use it when required..

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

Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>

[snip]

That helped a lot, Charles.

Your message obviously crossed with my response to Suzanne.
As you can see there, it occurred to me that a program I had
installed around the same time as the problem started
installed a new toolbar. Your message reinforces my
suspicion.

Unlike Adobe Acrobat, the Enfish toolbar doesn't appear to
work on the basis of a .dot file, however, and how it does
its job on Word isn't clear to me. (Thankfully, also unlike
Acrobat, once the toolbar is turned off through the View
menu it stays off. With Acrobat I had to rename the .dot
file, disabling the new toolbar in order to get it out of my
hair).

I'm sending a message to the Enfish people to find out what
they have to say.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Bob Stringer]

Follow the link I gave you. It shows you how to find Add-Ins in Word 2000+
that don't show up under Templates and Add-Ins or in the Startup folder.

I took a look at it last night, after I had responded to
your earlier message, but I didn't report back right away
because I had to go out.

Anyway, following the instructions, I added the COM addins
button to the toolbar, and was then able to see that there
was an addin for Enfish. There were only two addins there,
and the other one wasn't checked. I unchecked the Enfish
addin and now don't get the Normal.dot message anymore.

I'll see how this goes with Enfish -- which I don't think I
ever want to use *within* Word, so I imagine there's no
problem there. I'll see, and in the meanwhile am waiting for
a response from the Enfish people.

Thanks very much for the help.

 

[Bob Stringer]

See http://www.gmayor.com/lose_that_adobe_acrobat_toolbar.htm on how to
manage the Adobe toolbar, whilst still being able to use it when required..

Thanks, Graham. That's good stuff.

 

[Rizwan]

Bob,

Try word in safe mode. To do that click on start->run--

type in "winword.exe /a" and hit OK(without the quoation

marks and there is a space between .exe and /a). This
will bring up a word document. Try creating and saving a
document here. What happens??

Regards

Rizwan

 

[Bob Stringer]

On Thu, 6 May 2004 18:09:49 -0700, "Rizwan"

Thanks, Rizwan.

I've made a note of your suggestion in case I have a similar
problem in the future. For the present, I fixed it by
disabling the add-in that turned out to be causing the
problem.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

Note, this is a diagnostic procedure (which can occasionally fix the
problem). You do not want to be opening word this way regularly, any more
than you want to be regularly opening Windows in Safe mode.
--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.