Normal hubris, MS nemesis, what is going on?

[Robert M. Lewis]

A little knowledge ... etc. I overstepped myself by trying to play around
with Normal (trying to put it somewhere safe, that I back-up often, and to
undo some unwanted customizations I did). Now (not sure exactly what I have
done) I keep getting the message "The global template, Normal, is already
open as an add-in program.", e.g., on openning a file or on going to
Tools>Templates and Add-ins. This is more than just annoying, it scares me,
I feel something nasty is going to happen.

Anyway, Word X with service release 1 running, Mac OS 10.2.6.

And I have rebooted.

 

[Robert M. Lewis]

A little knowledge ... etc. I overstepped myself by trying to play around
with Normal (trying to put it somewhere safe, that I back-up often, and to
undo some unwanted customizations I did). Now (not sure exactly what I have
done) I keep getting the message "The global template, Normal, is already
open as an add-in program.", e.g., on openning a file or on going to
Tools>Templates and Add-ins. This is more than just annoying, it scares me,
I feel something nasty is going to happen.

Anyway, Word X with service release 1 running, Mac OS 10.2.6.

And I have rebooted.

Oh, and now there are two copies of all my templates (Word or otherwise)
appear in my Project Gallery window (but not in the actual folder with the
templates in them, which contains all my templates plus Normal).

Scarier and scarier,
Robert M. Lewis

 

[Jim Gordon]

Hi Robert,

If you want to have Word make a pristine copy of Normal, with Word closed
rename or delete your existing file(s) called "Normal." When Word opens it
will create a new Normal file.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

 

[Robert M. Lewis]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the information.

If you want to have Word make a pristine copy of Normal, with Word closed
rename or delete your existing file(s) called "Normal." When Word opens it
will create a new Normal file.

Yes I did that, that is how I did it in the first place (and was one of the
things I did that seemed to get me in trouble), I have done this again and I
have deleted the Word preference files and the Office preference files. The
problem I had with all of my templates being listed twice has been solved (I
had set the location of both my User Templates and my Workgroup Templates as
the same place, changing that fixed that problem).

I believe that I have followed all of the directions found at:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/MacWordNormalTemplate.htm

for restoring the Normal template. But I am still getting the message:

"The global template, Normal, is already open as an add-in program."

on starting up Word and opening a file based on Normal (but only the first
time after that it doesn't happen), or on going to Tools>Templates and
Add-ins, this happens before the Tools>Templates and Add-ins window opens
and happens regardless of how many times I open this window.

For those coming late to this, this is in Word X with service release 1
running, Mac OS 10.2.6.

Robert M. Lewis
Scarier and scarier.

 

[Jim Gordon]

Hi again,

If you use Finder's GetInfo with the Word icon, what does it say about the
version and build number of Word that you are using?

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

----------

 

[Robert M. Lewis]

Jim.

If you use Finder's GetInfo with the Word icon, what does it say about the
version and build number of Word that you are using?

It says that it is Word 10.1.1 (2425).

Robert M. Lewis
Scarier and scarier.

 

[Jim Gordon]

Almost forgot to mention that after you run the update installer, be sure to
run Disk Utility First Aid to repair permissions.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

----------

 

[Robert M. Lewis]

Hi Jim,

Something tells me that your copy of Word didn't update properly. Try
running the update 10.1.2 update again:
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/DOWN
LOAD/OFFICEX/OfficeX_1012.xml&secid=5&ssid=11&flgnosysreq=True>

Did that, still got the "The global template, Normal, is already open as an
add-in program." warning on opening any document based on Normal (including
blank new ones) and on going to Tools>Templates and Add-Ins.

I'd almost like to suggest the 10.1.4 update, as well,

Did that too, same warnings.

but let's do one step
at a time. I sorta kinda think your problem is one that was fixed by the
10.1.2 update.

Clearly the problem has to do with the Normal template and perhaps were it
is (it is in Users>Me>Documents>Microsoft User Data>>My Templates). If I
delete Normal, then on starting up Word using a document based on Normal I
do not get this message. Nor will I get it again until I quite Word and
start again.

Is it to do with how I have set up Word>Preferences>File Locations?

Presently it is set for Users>Me>Documents>Microsoft User Data>>My Templates
for both User templates and Startup (set that way by me so that it would be
regularly backed up and so that I would be using the same Normal for two
computers which I synchronize regularly.).

Thanks for trying but we still haven't solved it.

Robert M. Lewis
Scarier and scarier.

 

[Robert M. Lewis]

Jim.

This article may have the solution you need:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;112496

Yes that solves the problem, thanks very much.

The problem would seem to be that in putting Normal in the same folder as my
templates were, Word tried to reload Normal along with all of my templates.
So it was probably just an annoyance and not actually a symptom of any more
serious problems.

Perhaps the MVP page on the Normal template:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/MacWordNormalTemplate.htm

should mention that:

1) Normal can not be in the same folder as My templates, with the latter set
as the start up folder, or you will get the aforementioned warning message.

2) User Templates and My Workgroup Templates should also not be in the same
folder or all of the user templates will be listed twice.