Word shortcut in Windows startup menu, way to have Word open withGENERAL tab of options showing?

[StargateFanNotAtHome]

For some inexplicable reason, this is the first contract where none of
the changes are saved in Word from one session to the next. The
instant I reboot and start up Word again, all my necessary changes in
options are lost.

Is there perhaps a commandline way to get Word to open with the
GENERAL tab from OPTIONS showing?

I don't want an AutoOpen type of solution that does this as that would
mean that the dialogue box would open up each time Word is launched.
Rather, perhaps a commandline solution would be great since I could
then, hopefully, stick a shortcut to it somehow in the Windows startup
menu so that each time Windows is run, I can make the changes to the
GENERAL tab that are needed.

Or perhaps there's a better way, who knows ... for that reason, the
specific customizations needed are:

1. Change units of measure to inches. It reverts back to centimeters
all the time (and can't change control panel as its locked to us,
too).
2. List of MRU from 4 to 9.
3. And most importantly, untick the annoying Reading layout as
default.

Thanks in advance. Hoping there's something that can be done. This
has never happened before where my normal.dot's changes don't work
from one reboot to another. I get my personalized toolbars just fine,
it's these customizations that don't get saved from session to
session.

Thanks! D

 

[Jay Freedman]

The symptoms and unsaved options you mentioned are all consistent with
damage to the Data registry key
(http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/DataKeySettings.htm), which is
completely independent of the Normal.dot template.

Before worrying about workarounds, try deleting and rebuilding the Data key.
First use the steps listed in the DataKeySettings.htm article under "How to
preserve your Settings preferences", and then follow the instructions at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/MissingMenusEtc.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[StargateFanNotAtHome]

The symptoms and unsaved options you mentioned are all consistent with
damage to the Data registry key
(http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/DataKeySettings.htm), which is
completely independent of the Normal.dot template.

Before worrying about workarounds, try deleting and rebuilding the Data key.
First use the steps listed in the DataKeySettings.htm article under "How to
preserve your Settings preferences", and then follow the instructions athttp://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/MissingMenusEtc.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP         FAQ:http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroupso
all may benefit.

[snip]

Jay, thank you! It turns out more was going on than I'd realized at
first. The settings were not lost every single time a reboot was
done. It seems it may have had more to do with when I ran CCleaner,
which empties out temp folders, etc.

I read both articles above and though I cannot edit the registry, I
can at least see into it. The information to be found in the DATA
folder in the registry is simply not there. Since they lock it down,
I'm guessing that that may be one of the main reasons why I might keep
losing settings. The Word.pip file that I found was from 2006 so
nothing relevant there, apparently. Perhaps the settings changes I
make are saved in a file that gets dumped to one of those temp folders
which is why it gets lost every so often. I'll keep an eye on it, but
it seems that the culprit lies there, somewhere.

Whatever the case may be, I could not apply any of the solutions
regarding the registry that were given. However, I ended up using the
AutoExec option (sorry, I always mix the names up, it's "AutoExec",
not "AutoOpen" <g>). I have my normal.dot backed up constantly so if
I ever ran into a problem with a macro saved to it, which this one is
of course, I could just put in one of the old normal.dot's in its
place. There is the option also to hold down the Shift key whenever
an "Auto" macro might run, so in this case, I'd just have to hold down
the Shift key on Word startup to stop that AutoExec from running on
Word launch.

Thanks, the macro works very well. It's the first time this has
happened in all the years I've been doing temp work, so it's just
something that they do here at this contract that is affecting Word.
Knowing a workaround is good even if I can't fix the problem at the
registry level. Always good to learn new things, though, and it's
working so that's what counts.

Thanks. D