Why does WORD want to save NORMAL?

[WeeGeordie]

I have a client who has purchased a new XP system with the latest version of WORD for the purpose of writing a novel. He has had many problems due to his inexperience with tehcnology, (he is a retired lawyer). Some of his documents are in RTF format and when he tries to exit from these the system wants to save a file called NORMAL. I believe it is a template file of some sort but I'm unfamiliar with this version of the software. What is it trying to do and how can he get it to stop? He has not made any changes to the document when he attempts to exit. Thanks

 

[xlhelp]

Mostly, renaming Normal.dot will take care of the situation.

I noted that you have this question in another thread as well. Yes, doldol's solution will apply here as well.

 

[WeeGeordie]

Thanks xlhelp. Sounds like I have a few options to try. Virus scan, rename normal.dot and the registry update as per doldol. I'm most interested in knowing what the cause of the problem is. I will post an update after I pay a visit to my client. Thanks again.

P.S. I try not to do multiple posts but I've been having considerable problems with timeouts when I attempt to research existing posts. I'll try to be more patient in future.

 

[xlhelp]

Excelpt for corruption, the most common reason is that there is a volatile function in the normal.dot template (such as Date or time)