Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Problems with Normal.dot in Word 2000
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 |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
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 Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Trent SC" wrote in message ... 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 |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
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 Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Trent SC wrote: 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 |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
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. 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. 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 |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
"Bob C" wrote in message ... 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 |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
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 |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
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 Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org Trent SC wrote: 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 |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Thanks for the suggestion, which we tried - there aren't any orphaned temp
files! This is typical behaviour caused by orphaned temp files following a crash - see my previous reply. 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 |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Does Word have Keyboard Merges like Word Perfect does? | Mailmerge | |||
Word2000 letterhead merge | Mailmerge | |||
Locking Two Words Together to Make a Proper Compound Noun in Word | Microsoft Word Help | |||
Wordperfect Office 2000 conversion to Word 2003 | New Users | |||
word xp crashes after macros are recorded | Microsoft Word Help |