Word 2003 prompts to save unchanged

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

I'm having a problem with Word prompting me to save every file I open
with it. It even happens with a new (and/or empty) document, with no
formatting or any other fancy stuff in it. Nothing appears in the undo
list, so I have no idea what it thinks has changed. If I save straight
after opening, the changed state seems to be cleared correctly; but
this isn't a great workaround as it means that my documents'
modification dates are now almost meaningless.

I have spent some time researching this and have:
Installed all available Office updates
Uninstalled all add-ins.
Deleted all macros.
Reset my normal.dot.
Turned off smart tags.
Detect and repair - I don't have the source Office 2003 CDs, so this
just nuked my Outlook account settings (not very helpful!)

Does anyone have any other ideas on how to fix this? Unfortunately I
don't have the installation source, or I would have tried reinstalling
already...

Thanks in advance.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See "WD2002: You Are Prompted to Save Changes When You Close a Document Even
Though You Have Made No Changes"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=816473

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

See "WD2002: You Are Prompted to Save Changes When You Close a Document Even
Though You Have Made No Changes"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=816473

I've already read it and turned off smart tags as I stated in my
original message...

The article is about Word 2002, but I tried changing it anyway. I also
tried changing the 'embed smart tags' setting in Tools>Options>Save...

 

[Guest]

Also worth noting that this can happen (in Word 2000 anyway) if you 'ignore
any spelling suggestions. Sure, you may not have made any visible changes,
but you *have* added to an invisible file which goes with document, to say
which words you have 'accepted' as right. This one fooled me for some time.

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

Also worth noting that this can happen (in Word 2000 anyway) if you 'ignore
any spelling suggestions. Sure, you may not have made any visible changes,
but you *have* added to an invisible file which goes with document, to say
which words you have 'accepted' as right. This one fooled me for some time.

For me this is happening with a brand new document with some (correctly
spelled!) text, without running spell check or doing anything but
typing and saving.

 

[Guest]

For me this is happening with a brand new document with some (correctly
spelled!) text, without running spell check or doing anything but
typing and saving.

Ah! 'Typing' what?

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

Ah! 'Typing' what?

Typing anything. For example: "This is a test."

 

[Guest]

Typing anything. For example: "This is a test."

Perhaps I've missed the point here, but if you are typing anything then of
course you will be prompted to save. Sorry if I'm off the beam.

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

Perhaps I've missed the point here, but if you are typing anything then of
course you will be prompted to save. Sorry if I'm off the beam.

I may have not been clear as I was trying to show that this bug happens
in even the most simple of documents.

Here is what is happening:
1) Open Word.
2) Open new document
3) Type 'This is a test'.
4) Save and exit.
5) Open this new document.
6) Close Word without typing anything.
7) Word prompts me to save the unchanged document.

 

[Guest]

OK Got that now. Over to the experts (I'm just a newbie but I thought it
might be something simple that I have just discovered like the 'ignored'
words in a spell check being saved invisibly with the document).

 

[Beth Melton]

Are you sure you are being prompted to save changes to the Document or
the Normal.dot? If the latter then take a look at this article:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011514521033.aspx

Actually, if you are being prompted to save changes to the document
then the article I cited may also help you as well since it could be a
third-party add-in causing the issue. If that's the case then
disregard the references to Normal.dot in the article and use the
steps provided to see if you have an add-in causing the problem.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

Are you sure you are being prompted to save changes to the Document or
the Normal.dot? If the latter then take a look at this article:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011514521033.aspx

Actually, if you are being prompted to save changes to the document
then the article I cited may also help you as well since it could be a
third-party add-in causing the issue. If that's the case then
disregard the references to Normal.dot in the article and use the
steps provided to see if you have an add-in causing the problem.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have actually had the 'save normal.dot'
bug previously (with a snagit add-in), but the problem now is with the
document...

I followed the directions in the article and I have no startup items,
macro security set to high, no trusted publishers and no plug-ins but
the COM Eastern European Fonts (which is set to load on demand).

 

[Beth Melton]

Can you duplicate the behavior if you start Word in Safe Mode? Hold
Ctrl while starting Word, keep the Ctrl key held down until prompted
to start in Safe Mode.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

Can you duplicate the behavior if you start Word in Safe Mode? Hold
Ctrl while starting Word, keep the Ctrl key held down until prompted
to start in Safe Mode.

I still get the same issue opening or creating files in safe mode, yes.

Another clue in case it helps anyone, I get the same issue opening
plain text files in Word.

Thanks...

 

[Beth Melton]

I know this has been asked already but I really need confirmation on
this: when you started Word in Safe Mode did you encounter the prompt
to start Word in Safe Mode and did you answer "Yes"?

I'm struggling with trying to think of something that would dirty a
document when using Safe Mode. When Safe Mode is used, essentially you
are using the program defaults.

What virus scanner do you use? Your virus scanner wouldn't be disabled
when you use Word Safe Mode. A scan could potentially trigger a dirty
document.

Also, does the behavior occur if you start Windows in Safe Mode?

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

I know this has been asked already but I really need confirmation on
this: when you started Word in Safe Mode did you encounter the prompt
to start Word in Safe Mode and did you answer "Yes"?
Yes.

What virus scanner do you use? Your virus scanner wouldn't be disabled
when you use Word Safe Mode. A scan could potentially trigger a dirty
document.

Symantec AntiVirus 10.0.1.100 / 61.2.0.14

Also, does the behavior occur if you start Windows in Safe Mode?

I don't know. It's gone away. This morning I started getting macro
security warnings about "C:\program files\Right Hemisphere\Deep
View\explorationXPublish.ocx" and smart tag DLLs (fplace.dll,
fdate.dll, mofl.dll, fstock.dll, fperson.dll) on opening Word. I don't
know why this changed as I installed "Deep View" months ago, was there
a Windows update last night? So I uninstalled "Deep View" and now the
document dirty flag isn't being set on opening (hooray).

So now I have a different problem: the Smart Tag dll warnings. I guess
I could lower the security settings or "always trust" Microsoft.
However, I really don't need Smart Tags and they just seem like a
nuisance, so maybe I could try to disable it entirely.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Beth Melton]

Beth Melton wrote:

I don't know. It's gone away. This morning I started getting macro
security warnings about "C:\program files\Right Hemisphere\Deep
View\explorationXPublish.ocx" and smart tag DLLs (fplace.dll,
fdate.dll, mofl.dll, fstock.dll, fperson.dll) on opening Word. I
don't
know why this changed as I installed "Deep View" months ago, was
there
a Windows update last night? So I uninstalled "Deep View" and now
the
document dirty flag isn't being set on opening (hooray).

Interesting that you still encountered this issue when starting Word
in Safe Mode since all add-ins are disabled. Oh well, glad you have
the issue resolved!

So now I have a different problem: the Smart Tag dll warnings. I
guess
I could lower the security settings or "always trust" Microsoft.
However, I really don't need Smart Tags and they just seem like a
nuisance, so maybe I could try to disable it entirely.

I suspect you turned off "Trust all installed add-ins and templates"
under Tools/Macro/Macro Security on the Trusted Publishers tab. If you
followed the instructions in my article then this was included.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Rat Monkey Hybrid]

I suspect you turned off "Trust all installed add-ins and templates"
under Tools/Macro/Macro Security on the Trusted Publishers tab. If you
followed the instructions in my article then this was included.

I did turn this off but it didn't have any noticeable effect. I've got
an idea why - I probably kept Outlook running (with Word message
editing), so Word didn't actually apply the settings until I restarted
my computer last night.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Beth Melton]

I did turn this off but it didn't have any noticeable effect. I've
got
an idea why - I probably kept Outlook running (with Word message
editing), so Word didn't actually apply the settings until I
restarted
my computer last night.

If you are using Word as your email editor in Outlook then that
explains a lot! Word was still running which skewed your
troubleshooting results.

Whew! Now I'm no longer scratching my head wondering how an add-in
snuck by Safe Mode.Thanks for the update.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/