Always prompted to save global template normal.dot

[Hendrik van Zeelen]

Hi all,

as of today I'm encountering this strange phenomenon in WORD 2000 (Win
98SE):
Every time I close WORD, I'm prompted "Changes have been made that
affect the global template normal.dot. Do you wish to save those
changes?" - or rather its German equivalent. This also happens when I
start WORD (blank with the /n parameter) and immediately close it
again - obviously nothing whatsoever has been changed.

I've read the recent threads here plus Knowledge Base article 241763.
I've checked for
*.dots in Start Up - there's only an Acrobat one, which I've had for
over a year.
* COM Add-ins - there are none
* Macros - hmmm - found "AddOurToolbar" <puzzled>, which cannot be
deleted. Noticed that all but the three macros I made myself carry the
description "created on 15/9/04 by <my name>" - is that standard, I
wonder.

I also ran a (makro)virus search with brand-new signature. The only
thing I changed on my system is I installed a BT dongle today.

Anything I overlooked here, any ideas?
Your help is appreciated, WORD is my #1 software app.
Greetz

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The most common causes are the Norton AntiVirus Office Plug-in and the
Microsoft Works Suite Add-in for Word, neither of which will show up as
either a *.dot add-in nor a COM add-in.

 

[Hendrik van Zeelen]

The most common causes are the Norton AntiVirus Office Plug-in and the
Microsoft Works Suite Add-in for Word, neither of which will show up as
either a *.dot add-in nor a COM add-in.

Suzanne,
I'm using neither - at least not consciously ;-) On the other hand,
these hardly would have sneaked in thru some backdoor.

The macro "AddOurToolbar", which I mentioned, as well as most other
macros are introduced by PDFMaker.dot in StartUp. They don't show up,
if I remove the dot from StartUp. But - as I said - I've used this for
over a year.

Any more ideas out there, pleeaase?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

You do *not* want to disable the prompt! That's like taking the batteries
out of your smoke detector. You need to find and cure the problem, not kill
the messenger.

 

[TF]

Rubbish. Only a misinformed idiot would deliberately disable the
notification. As Suzanne says, it is akin to taking the battery out of your
smoke detector. You obviously have no idea of the purpose of normal.dot
(like many software vendors).



: Not necessarily, Suzanne. Most firms I've worked in here in the UK
disable
: that prompt as users find it annoying. They download a fresh normal.dot on
: login every day to discourage customisations.
: Genine
:
: "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:
:
: > You do *not* want to disable the prompt! That's like taking the
batteries
: > out of your smoke detector. You need to find and cure the problem, not
kill
: > the messenger.
: >
: > --
: > 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.
: >
: > : > > Probably teaching grandmother to suck eggs, but did you check that the
: > > "prompt to save normal template" option is deselected? In Word 2000
this
: > > lives in Tools > Options > Save.
: > > Genine
: > >
: > >
: > > "Hendrik van Zeelen" wrote:
: > >
: > : > > > > The most common causes are the Norton AntiVirus Office Plug-in and
the
: > > > > Microsoft Works Suite Add-in for Word, neither of which will show
up
: > as
: > > > > either a *.dot add-in nor a COM add-in.
: > > >
: > > > Suzanne,
: > > > I'm using neither - at least not consciously ;-) On the other hand,
: > > > these hardly would have sneaked in thru some backdoor.
: > > >
: > > > The macro "AddOurToolbar", which I mentioned, as well as most other
: > > > macros are introduced by PDFMaker.dot in StartUp. They don't show
up,
: > > > if I remove the dot from StartUp. But - as I said - I've used this
for
: > > > over a year.
: > > >
: > > > Any more ideas out there, pleeaase?
: > > >
: >
: >

 

[Hendrik van Zeelen]

Genine, this may be so for companies under the very special
circumstances you mention, but otherwise Suzanne is absolutely right,
off course.

The point is, if I haven't changed one jota in that running of WORD,
why does it prompt me? Obviously some"thing" out there DID change
something. And I definitely would want to be alerted to this strange
phenomenon instead of sleep it out, wouldn't you?

HvZ

 

[Hendrik van Zeelen]

Genine, this may be so for companies under the very special
circumstances you mention, but otherwise Suzanne is absolutely right,
off course.

The point is, if I haven't changed one jota in that running of WORD,
why does it prompt me? Obviously some"thing" out there DID change
something. And I definitely would want to be alerted to this strange
phenomenon instead of sleep it out, wouldn't you?

HvZ

 

[Genine]

Thank you for your comments TF. I don't feel they were warranted. You do not
know me. I do not see that this forum is the place to flame someone. We are
all trying to help each other and comments like the one you made do not
contribute to the spirit of these forums.

I stand by my original post. In an office situation where you don't want to
allow user customisation, and you have a policy of everyone having the same
desktop it is fairly common to disable that message. I have worked in many UK
law firms where this has been done, and also in the UK offices of 2 US law
firms.

FYI I have worked with Word since Word 2.0 for DOS. I am not a vendor and
have never worked for one.

I would not dream of disabling the normal.dot warning message on my home
PC, but if Hendrik is using Word in a company environment his firm may well
have taken the decision to remove access to normal.dot from its users, it is
fairly common, particularly in law firms in the UK, especially where
templates are re-installed on login.

Not everyone who posts here uses Word at home.

Genine

 

[TF]

Genine

Please accept my apologies if my tone was OTT, but we frequently get bad
advice posted here and I like to throttle it straight away! I hope no
offence was taken. (You should see what happens when someone suggests that
there should be double spaces between sentences!)

The whole purpose of normal.dot is to permit users to customise Word to make
it easier to work their way. Looking at something as simple as the icons on
the standard toolbar displays - for example - I never use half of those
icons (cut, copy, paste, bold, italic, bullets, numbering, etc.) and I dump
them and put useful, hard-to-access commands such as PageBreakBefore,
Taskbar, Styles, various custom print command, etc. I also need them to fit
on one line (to save screen real estate). I also change the keyboard
assignments to suit the way I work. Now why should anyone at any level in
any company stop me customising? I certainly would not work for any company
that dictated that sort of policy and I'd advice anyone else to get out now
and find a good employer asap.

Which comes back to turning off the Save changes to Normal option. There is
never an occasion when this should be necessary or advisable.

Regards: Terry


: Thank you for your comments TF. I don't feel they were warranted. You do
not
: know me. I do not see that this forum is the place to flame someone. We
are
: all trying to help each other and comments like the one you made do not
: contribute to the spirit of these forums.
:
: I stand by my original post. In an office situation where you don't want
to
: allow user customisation, and you have a policy of everyone having the
same
: desktop it is fairly common to disable that message. I have worked in many
UK
: law firms where this has been done, and also in the UK offices of 2 US law
: firms.
:
: FYI I have worked with Word since Word 2.0 for DOS. I am not a vendor and
: have never worked for one.
:
: I would not dream of disabling the normal.dot warning message on my home
: PC, but if Hendrik is using Word in a company environment his firm may
well
: have taken the decision to remove access to normal.dot from its users, it
is
: fairly common, particularly in law firms in the UK, especially where
: templates are re-installed on login.
:
: Not everyone who posts here uses Word at home.
:
: Genine
:
: "Hendrik van Zeelen" wrote:
:
: > Genine, this may be so for companies under the very special
: > circumstances you mention, but otherwise Suzanne is absolutely right,
: > off course.
: >
: > The point is, if I haven't changed one jota in that running of WORD,
: > why does it prompt me? Obviously some"thing" out there DID change
: > something. And I definitely would want to be alerted to this strange
: > phenomenon instead of sleep it out, wouldn't you?
: >
: > HvZ
: >

 

[Genine]

Thank you for your apology Terry.

Many firms that are trying to enforce use of their house styles will disable
much of Word's functionality that allows user customisation and built their
own custom toolbars instead, ones that run their own macros instead of
vanilla Word commands. I've worked at firms where they blocked off completely
any access to Word's native bullets and numbering and only used third party
numbering schemes. Tight control over styles and formatting is very common
these days, particularly in the legal environment where many people may work
on the same document - it makes sense to all do things the same way and all
use the same settings on starting Word. I don't think that you can judge
an employer by whether or not he lets you move buttons on a toolbar or change
your styles. Corporate identity is very important these days, and to a firm
where image matters, policing and enforcing use of house styles only in
document content is important.

Personally I steer clear of saving things in normal.dot. I keep my
customisations e.g. styles and autotext, in a separate startup template. I
rarely use the toolbars, I'm more a menu person, as I'm old enough to
remember Word before it was too friendly with a mouse! So I don't change much
in normal.dot and don't worry about losing any settings or changes to it as I
create a new one each time I use Word.

But that is beside the point. Hendrik has a problem he wants to solve.
While discussing these issues with you is interesting, it isn't helping
Hendrik, so let's just agree to differ on these points.

Hendrik, perhaps the setting I mentioned in my earlier post *was* selected
before you noticed, and is now no longer selected? Just a thought.

Something as simple as removing or adding a toolbar button or changing your
default font can make the message appear.

As both Suzanne and Terry have said, normally you wouldn't switch off the
warning message, but if it is annoying you then there are other ways to hide
it. e.g. you could write a macro to run on exit that says no to it in the
background so that you don't have to see it any more. Of course, if you did
this, however, you wouldn't be able to save any changes that you *did* want
to make to your normal.dot.

If you aren't using the anti virus software that Suzanne mentioned, are you
using any other anti virus software? If not, have you checked to make sure
you don't have a virus on your PC?

What happens if you run winword with the /a parameter? This should give you
a new (temporary) normal.dot.

Genine

 

[Hendrik van Zeelen]

Hi all,

thanks for getting back to the problem in question ;-)

Something as simple as removing or adding a toolbar button or changing your
default font can make the message appear.

As I pointed out in my OP "This also happens when I start WORD (blank
with the /n parameter) and immediately close it again - obviously
nothing whatsoever has been changed."

...but if it is annoying you then there are other ways to hide
it. e.g. you could write a macro to run on exit that says no to it in the
background so that you don't have to see it any more.

I don't really see, what difference there is between turning it off or
hiding it. The point is, I do want to see that message. What worries
me is, why do I get this pop-up, when I (!) haven't changed a thing.
"Who" did?

If you aren't using the anti virus software that Suzanne mentioned, are you
using any other anti virus software?

Again, as I said earlier "I also ran a (makro)virus search with
brand-new signature. "

What happens if you run winword with the /a parameter? This should give you
a new (temporary) normal.dot.

The behaviour in question does NOT occur. Does that tell us anything
about where the problem lies? Please explain.

In the meantime I went back to an earlier registry, the problem was
gone. Today I installed my BT dongle again, and here we go again, same
problem. What on earth would some BT driver do to WORD 2000 <puzzled>?
I cannot think of any other incident/ procedure which could have
provoked WORD to go haywire both times.

Hmm, talking 'bout BT.... I now have a menu item (probably not there
before)"send to Bluetooth". Does this item kind of get "refreshed"
every time WORD is started? See what I mean - thus changing the menu,
i.e. normal.dot? Make any sense to anybody? Is there a way - registry
hack, whatever - I could delete this line in the file menu (don't
think I'll need it anyhow)?

Any ideas - please step forward!
HvZ

 

[Genine]

Starting word with /a prompt loads none of the installed add ins. In other
words, you get vanilla Word out of the box just as Microsoft made it. You
also get a brand new blank (albeit temporary) normal.dot.

If using this method *doesn't* give you the warning message, then this
indicates that the cause of the message must be something in your
configuration or Word start up that is causing the problem.

Has the bluetooth thing put another template in your startup folder, or
added one in? Look in Tools > Templates and Add Ins and see which templates
(if any) are selected as add ins.

Check your startup folder (usually its C:\ program files\microsoft
office\office\startup) to see if there are any templates in there. If so, try
moving them somewhere else one by one to see which one is causing the
message.

Regards
Genine

 

[TF]

Hendrik

There have been a series of problems caused by installs of Bluetooth - some
causing some very weird side effects in Word. However, most times
uninstalling the Bluetooth device and restarting Word eliminates the
problem. Reinstalling the Bluetooth seems to be OK when it is reinstalled
later!

Because the /a switch eliminates the normal.dot prompt, it is almost
certainly a third party add-in or possibly, but less likely, normal.dot
itself is corrupt. Make sure that there is only one normal.dot on that
computer in the user's profile.

Rename normal.dot as normal.bad and remove everything from the Word Startup
folder. Test again. If it is still the same, go to Tools, Macros and disable
all the custom macros by renaming with an XXX in front of the name. Then
test again. If it insists on saving normal.dot, check for Com add-ins too.

Terry


: Hi all,
:
: thanks for getting back to the problem in question ;-)
:
: > Something as simple as removing or adding a toolbar button or changing
your
: > default font can make the message appear.
:
: As I pointed out in my OP "This also happens when I start WORD (blank
: with the /n parameter) and immediately close it again - obviously
: nothing whatsoever has been changed."
:
: > ...but if it is annoying you then there are other ways to hide
: > it. e.g. you could write a macro to run on exit that says no to it in
the
: > background so that you don't have to see it any more.
:
: I don't really see, what difference there is between turning it off or
: hiding it. The point is, I do want to see that message. What worries
: me is, why do I get this pop-up, when I (!) haven't changed a thing.
: "Who" did?
:
: > If you aren't using the anti virus software that Suzanne mentioned, are
you
: > using any other anti virus software?
:
: Again, as I said earlier "I also ran a (makro)virus search with
: brand-new signature. "
:
: > What happens if you run winword with the /a parameter? This should give
you
: > a new (temporary) normal.dot.
:
: The behaviour in question does NOT occur. Does that tell us anything
: about where the problem lies? Please explain.
:
: In the meantime I went back to an earlier registry, the problem was
: gone. Today I installed my BT dongle again, and here we go again, same
: problem. What on earth would some BT driver do to WORD 2000 <puzzled>?
: I cannot think of any other incident/ procedure which could have
: provoked WORD to go haywire both times.
:
: Hmm, talking 'bout BT.... I now have a menu item (probably not there
: before)"send to Bluetooth". Does this item kind of get "refreshed"
: every time WORD is started? See what I mean - thus changing the menu,
: i.e. normal.dot? Make any sense to anybody? Is there a way - registry
: hack, whatever - I could delete this line in the file menu (don't
: think I'll need it anyhow)?
:
: Any ideas - please step forward!
: HvZ

 

[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,

 

[Hendrik van Zeelen]

Terry,
sorry I've been on holiday these last weeks, so I missed your
comments.

However, most times
uninstalling the Bluetooth device and restarting Word eliminates the
problem. Reinstalling the Bluetooth seems to be OK when it is reinstalled
later!

I don't quite get your point here. Uninstalling BT indeed eliminates
the problem. But your 2nd sentence sounds somewhat cryptic to me,
sorry. In my case installing BT again brought on the same problem.

Starting with the /a switch eliminates the problem as mentioned
before. I do notice that then the "send to BT" ewntry is absent from
the File menu. As I did check all those other potential sources, I am
pretty sure it is exactly this menu entry.

My vague notion is that the BT driver somehow "writes" itsself (or
rather the known, i.e. coupled BT devices) into Normal.dot, thus
changing it. Does this make any sense or am I imagining things. Is
there any possibility to supress this mechanism. More precisely: Is
there some registry entry responsible for the "send to" entries in
Word? Or a macro - though I don't seem to find any? This is obviously
how Acrobat "introduces itsself to Word on every start, with a
separate AutoStart .dot full of macros.

HvZ

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

When you start Word with the /a switch, you bypass any add-ins in Word's or
the Office Startup folder. Presumably BlueTooth has installed an add-in that
adds the "Send to BT" item to the menu.

 

[Hendrik van Zeelen]

Further to my previous post of today:

It seems Bluetooth "writes" itsself into the Winword's "Send to" menu
by way of btsendto_office.dll. I renamed it to render it harmless and
that did the trick - no more prompts to save global template
normal.dot!

I do hate crummy work-arounds and would much rather have a clean
solution to this. But it seems some people write crummy software - in
this case the renowned Widcomm BT drivers - so what can you do.

HvZ