How can I stop "Save As" from popping up repeadedly while I work?

[Student with Word]

I have Windows XP and am using Microsoft Office Word 2003. Lately, while I'm
working on a Word document, the "Save As" feature keeps popping up in the
middle of my document. Whether I click on "Cancel" or save the document, the
box only goes away temporarily. Sometimes it reappears in seconds after I've
gotten it to go away.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

That is not normal behaviour so I would suspect one of two things:

You are accidently invoking the keyboard command for saving the document

or

There is some add-in on your system that is doing it. Look under
Tools>Templates and Addins to see what is there.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[LJ]

Hi Doug.

I am so glad that "Student with Word" has given me a place to start. I'm
sure this problem is not being caused by inadvertent keyboard commands; I
tried typing "the quick brown fox" a few times to check out this out. "Save
as" popped up indiscriminately. Also, I am using a computer that is only two
months old; it came with Windows and Office loaded, and there are no Addins
yet (that I can find). I also checked for macros...not one yet.

Perhaps I can supply a little more info. that might be helpful.

1. This problem is not confined to Word. It also happens when I am working
with Excel and Outlook. I haven't tested it out in PPoint, Access, or
Publisher.

2. It doesn't start happening right away, but once it starts happening it
speeds up (becomes more "insistent"). At first, the popups are 5-10 seconds
apart, and it doesn't matter if I "cancel" or "save as," they begin speeding
up until they are reocurring so fast that I can not type one letter of text
between them.

3. The only way to continue working is to reboot the computer. Then, after
15 or 20 minutes, the cycle starts all over again.

This is so aggravating that it has taken all of the pleasure out of having
the great new laptop that I have waited so long to be able to purchase. I
appreciate your response to Student with Word and am hoping that you will
hang in there with us until we can figure out how to correct this.

Thank you!

LJ

 

[Tony Jollans]

Fascinating! This certainly isn't normal Word behaviour.

If this happens so rapidly that you can't type anything after dismissing one
prompt before seeing another then it seems unlikely that it is something you
are accidentally triggering. The implication is that some software is
running behind the scenes. Anything as insistent as this I would consider
malware of some sort (and I do consider much 'genuine' software to behave so
badly as to be so classified) but it may be an addin deliberately designed
to force you to save your work regularly to stop you losing it. If you start
Word in safe mode (press and hold Ctrl while Word starts) do you still get
the problem?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm guessing LJ has something like SaveReminder running (see
http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm).

Fascinating! This certainly isn't normal Word behaviour.

If this happens so rapidly that you can't type anything after dismissing one
prompt before seeing another then it seems unlikely that it is something you
are accidentally triggering. The implication is that some software is
running behind the scenes. Anything as insistent as this I would consider
malware of some sort (and I do consider much 'genuine' software to behave so
badly as to be so classified) but it may be an addin deliberately designed
to force you to save your work regularly to stop you losing it. If you start
Word in safe mode (press and hold Ctrl while Word starts) do you still get
the problem?

--
Enjoy,
Tony

Hi Doug.

I am so glad that "Student with Word" has given me a place to start. I'm
sure this problem is not being caused by inadvertent keyboard commands; I
tried typing "the quick brown fox" a few times to check out this out. "Save
as" popped up indiscriminately. Also, I am using a computer that is

only

two
months old; it came with Windows and Office loaded, and there are no Addins
yet (that I can find). I also checked for macros...not one yet.

Perhaps I can supply a little more info. that might be helpful.

1. This problem is not confined to Word. It also happens when I am working
with Excel and Outlook. I haven't tested it out in PPoint, Access, or
Publisher.

2. It doesn't start happening right away, but once it starts happening it
speeds up (becomes more "insistent"). At first, the popups are 5-10 seconds
apart, and it doesn't matter if I "cancel" or "save as," they begin speeding
up until they are reocurring so fast that I can not type one letter of text
between them.

3. The only way to continue working is to reboot the computer. Then, after
15 or 20 minutes, the cycle starts all over again.

This is so aggravating that it has taken all of the pleasure out of having
the great new laptop that I have waited so long to be able to purchase. I
appreciate your response to Student with Word and am hoping that you will
hang in there with us until we can figure out how to correct this.

Thank you!

LJ

 

[LJ]

I'm using Word in safe mode now, but it hasn't been long enough yet to tell
if the pesky Save As will persist. I will see how this goes tonight and stay
in touch. Re. malware: I run both Ad-Aware and Spyware Doctor regularly (in
addition to AVG Virus and Norton Virus/Firewall) to keep that stuff out. I
know that AVG and Norton are not meant to co-exist, but I have never had a
problem as long as I loaded Norton first. I try to make it as difficult as I
can for any of that nasty stuff to set up camp.

I didn't know that I could start a single application in safe mode; always
thought it could only be done at the Windows start-up. Thanks for the info.
As I said, this has been happening for me in Word, Excel, and Outlook, so it
will be interesting to see if it ceases in Word and not the others.

Thank you for your help.

 

[LJ]

Very interesting site Susanne. I'm sure that I have not loaded this on
purpose and could not find anything by this name when I ran a search. I also
checked currently running processes in the task manager and didn't find
anything like this there. I will keep looking. Thanks!

I'm guessing LJ has something like SaveReminder running (see
http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm).

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Office Safe Mode is different from Windows Safe Mode.

 

[LJ]

Yes. After just a few minutes, Save As starts popping up so fast that I can
not even grap an opportunity to "X Out" of the application. Again, choosing
to save over choosing to cancel makes absolutely no difference. This is
maddening!

 

[LJ]

Yes, that is helpful to know. I have been working in safe mode in Word and
Excel tonight, but this continues to happen so often that I can not make
progress in either application. Thanks for your input; if you have any more
suggestions, please don't hesitate to share. I have tried everything I can
think of, including reinstalling Office using the fix/repair option. Nothing
has helped to stop this or even slow it down. In fact, it is getting worse.

 

[LJ]

Have you had any luck fixing this?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If Word runs correctly in Office Safe Mode, then the problem is with
Normal.dot, the Registry, or an add-in. In this case, I would definitely
suspect some kind of add-in. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm.

 

[Graham Mayor]

If you continue to have problems with Word running in safe mode and you are
sure that you have ruled out malware, then you either have a driver
problem - update the display driver and the printer driver - or you have a
hardware problem - the fact that it starts after 15-20 minutes suggests an
overheating component that is breaking down after this time.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP


<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>