[RESOLVED] Word's Continuous Save of the Normal Template

[StevePorter]

Every time I exit Word 2000, it saves my normal document template (NORMAL.DOT). Does anybody know why Word does this, and if there's a way to disable this feature? It's really annoying and time consuming that Word wants to save NORMAL.DOT every time...

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Sometimes computer problems require extreme measures. Our hero, the Intrepid Spaceman Spiff, sets his blaster on "deep fat fry..."

[Rocinante]

how long does it take to save it steve?

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[StevePorter]

There's a good three-to-five second (or more) delay. It's really troublesome when Word 2000 crashes, because it insists that it wants to re-load an unsaved version of NORMAL.DOT. This isn't a "do-or-die" problem, just an annoyance...

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Sometimes computer problems require extreme measures. Our hero, the Intrepid Spaceman Spiff, sets his blaster on "deep fat fry..."

[Tushar]

It seems to be a Word macro Virus. I read somewhere (either Mcafee of MS Office pages, I dont recollect) that the virus tries to change the Normal.dot template, so that all files created in future on that machine are guaranted infected. An easy way to replicate one self I suppose.

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[StevePorter]

Interesting idea, but I actively run Norton AntiVirus, everything's up-to-date, and system scans are performed once a week. No, it's not a virus, but rather appears to be something that Word 2000 does on a continuous basis. I've tried to figure out how to turn this feature off, but no luck...

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Sometimes computer problems require extreme measures. Our hero, the Intrepid Spaceman Spiff, sets his blaster on "deep fat fry..."

[Tushar]

From the above Steve, it looks one thing. Do you mean you are bothered with WoRD 2K giving message while quitting, whether you want to save Nornmal.dot ? If so then try Options > Save > Confirm to save Normal.dot. Uncheck the box and then Word2K will do the saving without prompting (i.e. bothering) you.

But one thing is sure, you have drilled a hole in my mind, which sure needs to searched and plugged. Thanks for the same.

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Together we can change the world !
Come let us make it happen !!

[Lowland]

Re-think virus. Think MV(?)Concept. Think - is my AV software scanning only program files. Seen this on all Word Versions. Virus not serious, but durned annoying. It lives in .doc files and .dot, and propogates by forcing you to save files as .dot.

Good luck

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[Sowulo]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Tushar:
If so then try Options > Save > Confirm to save Normal.dot</font>

Actually, it's options/save/prompt to save normal template.

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[StevePorter]

Actually, my problem isn't with Word prompting me whether to save the NORMAL.DOT document template (it doesn't do that; the check box in Options | Save has always been unchecked), but rather just the delay caused by Word saving the normal document template when I'm exiting Word. I have a lot of customization in NORMAL.DOT, so it's quite large. The delay is only a few seconds, so this issue isn't critical. It seems to me, however, that other versions of Word didn't save the normal document template unless it had been changed. I'm not changing the global template, yet Word still saves NORMAL.DOT every time Word is closed. Oh, well, I guess I'll just live with it...

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Sometimes computer problems require extreme measures. Our hero, the Intrepid Spaceman Spiff, sets his blaster on "deep fat fry..."

[Sowulo]

I think I'd see if actually opening the normal.dot file in word and then resaving it would get rid of the embedded history in the file and make it smaller and therefore faster. You might benefit by renaming it, opening it under the new name and then resaving it with 'save as' making it normal.dot once again...

Just musing out loud...might get some interesting results.

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