I wish Normal.dot would mind its own business

[Don]

I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a minute-by-minute backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.) Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a "bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save As" page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word "Templates" and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off, another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user etc. and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me what is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to assassinate this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

 

[Don]

Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see anyone
else with this problem.

 

[Tony Jollans]

Your AutoSave program runs once a minute, you hit the issue once a minute -
as the Americans say, you do the math! The problem is almost certainly in
the action of the AutoSave. Not knowing how it does its stuff, I can't
really comment further - does it have any options relating to Normal.dot (an
essential element of Word, which you cannot assassinate).

 

[Don]

Thanks for replying Tony.

Yes, I do realize that the problem is "in synch" with my auto save. Even
so, I don't believe the problem is with the auto save software, as such. For
one thing, the auto recover software was working perfectly well with my word
2002--no problem at all--for a long time. Secondly, it's a very simple piece
of software and there's nothing to adjust in it. It just saves one copy a
minute to a folder on my external drive. It could and probably is involved
tangentially, but I think the problem has more to do with my normal.dot
template. However, I've never changed anything in the normal.dot (not that
I'm aware of, anyway), so I can't figure out why it's acting up, nor how to
fix it.

I've been looking around on the Net, but I don't really understand how it
works.
Surely someone here can tell me how to set it right.

A late report... I just opened my Word 2002 and on the left in a vertical
section entitled "Available Files" it says "Template 1 Recovered. It asks me
which file do I want to save. And yes, the word "auto recover" is there.
Whoops, I did something and it's all gone. ....

Well, I'm glad I kept my old typewriter.

 

[Tony Jollans]

So you've had some sort of crash and Word has tried to recover - amongst
other things, your Normal template. It sounds like this has confused
AutoSave.

Word is playing safe and not allowing Normal.dot to be overwritten without
your say-so. Perhaps whatever you did has been taken to be that say-so - are
you saying all is now well?

 

[Don]

Thanks Tony. I think you're getting to the bottom of it. You're right. I
was having some trouble for a while a few days ago and my word (and my
explorer) crashed several times. I had some help to get back to normal and
haven't had any further crashes, but I guess this normal.dot problem is a
residual problem from whatever happened to me a few days ago. Otherwise
everything would be okay--I think.

I just downloaded and reinstalled the Auto Save, but the problem persisted.
The question is, what to do now. Do you have a suggestion?
--

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Don,

At the least, you need to clean up the crash debris. See
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm. That may not stop the
problem, but it certainly can't hurt.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

 

[Don]

Thanks for the information, Jay. I'll run through the procedure and clean up
the debris and report the result.

Cheers, Don.

 

[Don]

I went careful fhrough all the procedures contained in the link and I deleted
all the temp files as instructed, but my problem persists. Perhaps it would
help if I write down exactly what happens. Each time my Auto Save software
functions (once a minute) I get a “bong†and an extra window is created on my
desktop. This window will give rise to two others, so I have three windows
to close for each minute of work with the backup on, as follows:

1. A small window that says:

This file is in use by another application or user
(C:Users\My Name\...\Normal.dot)

I click okay and it’s followed by

2. a “Save As†page, the pertinent details of which are:

Save in: Templates

Name: Normal.dot

Save as type: Document Template (*.dot)

3. I close that item without saving it and I get a dark page. When I close
that the dark page, I get: a Microsoft Word “Notice†that reads.

“Changes have been made that affect the global template, Normal.dot. Do you
wish to save these changes. I click on “no†and that one disappears.

*These items accumulate at the rate of one a minute when I have my Auto Save
on. Please don’t suggest I simply keep the Auto Save off. I need it and it
worked perfectly well before the word crash. The problem pretty well has to
be related to an unwanted change in my word program. (I’ve reinstalled my
word 2002 several times and the problem persists.)

Perhaps this will ring a bell with someone. I continue to welcome any
suggestions.

 

[Tony Jollans]

Hi Don,

I found a product called AutoSave Software from SobolSoft and I can't see
exactly how it does its stuff but it runs as a separate application and
starts an independent instance of Word to do the save. This separate
instance is finding indication of an earlier problem and refusing to
overwrite Normal.dot - hence the prompts you are seeing.

I haven't so far been able to reproduce the error but I think that ...

... if you reply "Yes", you do want to save Normal.dot, - and overwrite the
existing one in your Templates directory - you should clear the condition.

I can see a couple of problems with this software but if it meets your need,
I suppose it is harmless.

 

[Don]

Hi Tony:

Yes, that's the product I'm using. I'll follow up on your suggestion and
we'll see what happens. Thanks for going to all this trouble. Much
appreciated.

Don.

 

[Don]

Hi Again Tony:

I tried it, but it won't let me save the Normal.dot. It says it's a "read
only" file.

Frustrating business, this.

Cheers, Don.

 

[Tony Jollans]

Can you change its attributes?

Normal.dot, on Vista, should be in
C:\Users\Don\Appdate\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates (assuming Don is your
UserName - if not, change Don to your user name)).

Right Click on Normal.dot and choose Properties. Towards the bottom of the
dialogue there is a check box for Read only - uncheck it. I hope, then, you
can save it. Alternatively you could rename (or delete) the file - but you
might then lose settings saved in it.

 

[Don]

I went to the template folder, as suggested, but when I clicked on
Properties, the read only file was already unchecked. I then deleted the
Normal.dot (and backup and another one—i.e. all of them.) But when I opened
a previous word file, it made no difference.

I kept fooling around and discovered that if I opened a brand new Word
page, then the problem didn’t happen and my auto save worked fine. That is,
it worked fine for a few minutes, then I got a “Runtime Error†(Microsoft
Visual C++ Runtime ibrary… ) which reads: Program: C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office 10\WINWORD.EXE abnormal program termination.

I had a second runtime notice for MS Word Backup which reads “ Run time
error 429 Active X component can’t create object.

When I saved the page again, I got another Run Time error 97 which reads
“Cannot Call Friend Function on object which is not a member of the defining
class.

When I tried to close the page … well, it took me through a sequence asking
if I wanted to change the template. Since the page was drawn from a new
template, I said no all the way through to page closure.

I reopened the page that I saved with the new template and the problem
started again.

(As an aside . . . It would make things so much easier for trouble-shooting
if one could copy the error warnings and other notices. Perhaps the
Microsoft developers might keep this in mind for the next version of Windows.
)


Although this auto-save software was working fine before I had my word
crash, it appears no longer to be compatible with my particular Word 2002.
This is probably due to some corruption somewhere in my computer, and I’m not
about to reinstall Vista to eliminate it.

Maybe there are other templates I could try. I don’t know…

Anyway, Tony, I think you’ve done far more to try to help me out than I
could expect, and I thank you again for your help.

Now I think I’ve just about come to the end of the road, and I’m ready to
give up remove my auto save software, unless someone has another bright idea
I could try.

 

[Tony Jollans]

It sounds like things really are messed up :-(

It looks like a single error in the extra instance of Word, created by
AutoSave. The second error is a consequence of the first, and the third
looks like an error in the AutoSave's error-handling logic (just a guess).
as an aside, it depends a little on how messages are issued but it is
normally possible to copy them simply by pressing Ctrl+C.

I think you need to make sure you have a properly functioning Word before
trying to use AutoSave. Your (latest) error may have been caused by deleting
Normal.dot but I doubt it. More likely you have a problem with your Word
Data key in the registry. If you are comfortable with the registry, try
renaming or deleting the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Data key -
Word will create a new one when it starts (although, again, you will find
some settings have been reinitialised).

If this doesn't make things better then it may be that AutoSave needs to
run at some level of compatibility, although it appeared to work for me and
you have been using it successfully prior to this issue so that, too seems
unlikely.

Reinstalling Word is unlikely to help (as you have found out); reinstalling
Vista may help (depending how you do it) but is rather extreme unless you
are geared up for it; it should be possible to find a less drastic
resolution.

 

[Don]

My settings are minimal and I don't mind if they're changed. So yes, I'll go
into the Registry and give your suggestion a try. I'll report back later
with the result. Company coming.

Thanks again, Tony.

Don.

 

[Don]

-- Hi Again Tony

I need the first part of the path to find the registry. I've been there
before, but it's been a long time. When I'm in there I will be very careful
to do exactly what you suggest and nothing else, of course.

Thanks, Don

 

[Tony Jollans]

Not quite sure what you do and don't know, so, in full ...

Note: it is possible that Vista will ask you to give yourself permission to
do things - I'm not quite sure as I run with UAC turned off - just say OK if
it does.

Press the Windows Logo key and R together
Type regedt32
Click OK

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Data

With the "Data" key selected (in the left hand pane) press F2 and type a new
name - I normally just add an exclamation mark at the end, that way it stays
in the same place alphabetically - and press Enter.

Press Alt+F4 to exit the registry editor.

Try starting Word again.

If it still fails, try going back to the registry and renaming the whole
"Word" key (the parent of the Data one). This time when you start Word it
will go through a configuration process which might take a minute or two but
it will recreate the key.

I'm afraid that if it still fails, I'm getting low on ideas :-(

 

[Don]

I followed the instructions exactly and repeated the process several times,
first with the "data" item, then with the "word" item. No luck. Problem
persists.

I'll sit on the problem for a few more days, but if there's nothing else to
try, then I'll get rid of my auto save software and look for something else.

Again, I thank you for your help. .