Normal.dot

[Old_Geezer]

Ok this is getting me most put out now. Been going on too long, and would be worse if I actually turned the PC off every day.

Every time I restart or shut down it pauses making the ludicrous claim that normal.dot has changed and would I like to save it. I appreciate my 2003 version of MS Office is rather old now, but that's no excuse.

It's bad enough Win 7 puts up a black screen when closing down to ensure you get no chance to answer pop-ups and have to stop, answer the pop-up and then request the close down again, but I assume that is yet another of MS's sick little jokes. (It's not even as if, once you tell the application you don't want to save, it is sorted. Do that, try another restart or shut down, and it'll stop on the same thing again ! You have to manually close the application first. They MUST do it deliberately.) But I digress as usual.

A couple of questions :

Why does it pretend changes to normal.dot has occurred ?
How do I stop it moaning about these pretended changes to normal.dot needing to be saved every restart and close down ?

Thanks.

[SlackAlice]

Try this for starters!

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/291352

[1ozzy]

This may help you Old-Geezer.

http://www.pcdon.com/word-unstable-corrupted-normal-dot.html

[Noe-schitt]

Have a look here to see if this helps
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/291352

[SlackAlice]

Meant to add, I've got W7 and MS Office 2003 and I don't get the prompt.

[Tuvok]

You may have a macro or virus trying to change the default settings of Word which are stored in normal.dot

[Old_Geezer]

Thanks. I have had a go at sorting this before and no longer run the clock and weather gadgets I once did. It seemed to work for a bit but has been back for a while now. I'll try the links and see what they say.

I can't rule out some kind of infection but with Kaspersky Pure 3 AV and regular superantispyware and malwarebytes scans, it would surprise me.

[Hypognosis]

I haven't heard macro viruses mentioned for years. At least they are limited in scope and easy to defeat.

At the next opportunity, Start MS Word, go into the settings menus, track down the macros control tab and make sure they are inactivated. F1 key to launch the help file, to guide you, if needed.

The document in which the malicious macro arrived will likely still be on your machine. It may even have come from a trusted source, like an email attachment from a contact who you trust - because their machine got infected first.

If the virus scan handles such antiquated problems as Word macros then it will probably put the entire file in quarantine. If you've inactivated macros
in word, it can be viewed safely, printed and manually retyped, into a new file, if the content is that important to you. Copy and paste risks copying the, concealed, malicious macro.

My knowledge is out of date and some or all of the above may need correcting.

[Old_Geezer]

Cheers.

Interesting. I was going to say that it doesn't happen when I quit Word but when I restart the PC. Following instructions it just happened when I was out of word but quit MS Outlook !

The MS Links didn't seem to help as it kept asking me to remove or disable things that simply aren't there. I do notice I have a "Foxit Reader PDF" button in the menu bar of Word, not sure how to temporarily disable that to try, though.

However the deletion of all files named normal.dot (and ~normal.dot for good measure) seems to have done something. I'm not going to hold my breath because it did seem to go before and then returned, but if I do not return to the thread after a few weeks you then guys may have cracked it.

[chikispirit]

I have a iPad for online purposes, like chat sites and Twitter but it isn't much good for uploading forms or documents and you can't put a disclaimer on e-mails.

I use the library for anything to do with online Microsoft and have another old Microsoft computer which works perfectly well, offline. I hope that helps.

[Old_Geezer]

Just to mention that the problem came back. I think MS Outlook is trying to change something. :-(