It is not a good idea to run without an antivirus program in place, even
if you have a firewall. Norton Antivirus is notorious for causing this
particular problem. You are the first person I know to report McAfee
Antivirus causing it. Was Norton ever installed on your computer?
Strange as it may seem, uninstalling Norton doesn't always uninstall the
Norton Office Plugin, and unregistering the OFFICEAV.DLL file (which is
for the Norton Office Plugin) may fix the problem so you can install
McAfee again.

Mr. Roswell wrote:

You gave me the right idea!
I have McAfee installed instead of Norton. When I uninstalled the Virus
Protection leaving the Firewall, etc. WORD 2003 is now fully functional and
all old documents may be opened with no problems.
Thank you.
It appears that WORD 2003 and ANti-Virus programs don't get along very well.

"garfield-n-odie" wrote:


Search for the OFFICEAV.DLL file on the hard drive (be sure to include
system and hidden files/folders in the search options). If you find it,
note the folder where it is located, and use the "regsvr32 /u" method
described in KB329820 to unregister the DLL.

Mr. Roswell wrote:


I am running McAfee, but you may be on the right track. It says that it's
running a Virus check while it's telling me that my files are NOT AVAILABLE.
Other clue: They open flawlessly in Wordpad and Publisher.
Thank you for the ideas.

"garfield-n-odie" wrote:



Disable the Office Plugin that comes with Symantec/Norton AntiVirus.
See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329820 "How to use Office
programs with the Norton AntiVirus Office plug-in" for more information.

Mr. Roswell wrote:



New Computer with Student-Teacher Office 2003 installed as an after-purchase.
It recognizes all of my old documents (made in Word 2000), but whenever I
attempt to open any of them, I get "Not Available."
All of the files open in Wordpad and in Publisher.
Also, the prompts for the NOrmal.dot template are annoying and make little
sense.
Anyone else been through this?