Word 2002 encounters a problem at startup - normal.dot

[vk]

I've been using Word 2002n SP-2 for some time. The other day, I was working
in Word and suddenly got an error that Word had to close down. After,
opening Word, I got the error "Word has encountered a problem and needs to
close." I've opened it in safe mode and checked the Help>About
Word>Disabled Items" but have nothing listed. I've tried the repair option,
no help. After much testing I've discovered the following:

When replacing normal.dot with a copy, I am able to open Word. After
closing and reopening it, the problem occurs. Checking normal.dot, I find
that it has changed (different size). If I copy back the original,
everthing's fine the first time Word is invoked. If I delete normal.dot and
invoke Word, it creates a new one. I might be able to invoke Word one or
two more times (each time, normal.dot's size changes) before the problem
reoccurs. Once it occurs, I am unable to invoke it again, no matter how
many tries. I've checked the "Disabled Items" window several times - only
once did it list normal.dot, every other time nothing is listed.

Any clues? I'd rather do a remove-reinstall as a last measure; I've got a
number of other apps like Acrobat that have "hooks" into Word and fear I'd
have to reinstall them as well. And, no, I did not recently install an app
that hooks into Word. My setup has been working fine for at least a year.
I invoke Word using the default icon, I have not changed the startup method
by adding command-line switches. As I said, I have not made any changes to
Word just before the problem began. I also run Norton AntiVirus at all
times and have done a scan.

Thanks for any help
- Pierre

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm for a few
more things to try.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Pierre]

I suspect it is template corruption, but it seems Word corrupts normal.dot
after it creates a new one. That is- when I delete normal.dot and open
Word, it creates a new normal.dot. When I close Word and check normal.dot,
the size has changed from when it was just created. Then when I open Word,
I get the same problem. Thanks for the link to the help page, but there
doesn't seem to be anything there that helps, re: template corruption. When
I have time, I will check out the registry to see if there's a problem
there.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Try making Normal.dot read-only. It's possible that some virus or add-in is
modifying it. And of course make sure that you have "Prompt to update the
Normal template" checked on the Save tab of Tools | Options so that you can
Just Say No.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[vk]

Thanks for the suggestion - a nice workaround for now, and it works. When I
have time, I'll attack this problem again, but your suggestion lets me
charge ahead with some writing projects that need to get done soon.

 

[vk]

Well, I found the problem - thanks to some other post of a related problem.
I use Norton AntiVirus and had the plugin activated. I guess some recent
auto-upgrade of NAV changed things. At any rate, I turned off the plugin
for Word and now Word works without having to set normal.dot to read-only
and without having to prompt to update the normal template.