[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.