Change your company name in office

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I was very pleased to see a way described in today’s WOW for correcting the company name. However, although it has worked for Excel and Powerpoint, new Word2K files are still importing the old company name from somewhere – not the registry though as it is no longer in there.

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Take a look at the Properties (File/Properties) of any templates that are used to create new documents.

See if any of them still have the old Company name.

I would check Normal.dot for this as well, even though this template is usually reset to the Company name found in the Registry.
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Cheers!

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Thanks for pointing me in what seemed a promising direction. New blank Word documents seem to be based on Normal.dot (according to thier properties) but sadly are still picking up the old company name despite the fact that the latter contains the correct name.

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Try the following:

– Open Normal.dot
– Delete the Company name in File/Properties
– Save and Close
– Create a new document and check the File/Properties

Does the old Company name reappear or the does the new one appear?

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Yep, it still comes back! See also my response to Leif’s suggestion.

Dave

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Hi Dave,

Did you actually open Normal.dot and delete the company name or change it on a new document? Were you able to save your changes to Normal.dot or did it open as read only. (Read only would be reflected in the title bar)

If you are in doubt of where Normal.dot should be located, go to Tools/Options/File Locations and see where User Templates is pointing. If Word can not find a Normal.dot in that folder it will create one for you.

If you have difficulty with Normal.dot opening as read only, go to Start/Run and use the following command to start Word (there is a space before the forward slash):

winword /n

Additional questions/suggestions:
Are you in a network environment? If so then they may have your User Templates pointing to a shared folder network. (I don’t recommend doing that btw)

When you went to Start/Find/Files or Folders to search for Normal.dot, did you verify “Look in” was pointing to your hard drive and was Include subfolders ticked?

Also, if you have a partitioned HD, did you search those as well? (There should be a choice to search them all at the same time)

If you do happen to find more than one Normal.dot, you should only leave one named Normal.dot. If there is more than one, it can cause strange problems – such as this.
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Cheers!

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BAM – Thanks for taking the time to compile such a comprehensive reply. Actually, all the things you ask me to check I had in fact done.

For example, I opened normal.dot and changed the company name successfully there in the properties (I was asked to confirm the save of normal.dot on closing Word, and reopened normal.dot just to make sure the change had taken). Despite this, new documents are still finding it somewhere else.

I know which normal.dot is ‘live’ from the date stamp, and also because when I opened it I could see where the associated temporary file was created. Also, when I temporarily renamed them all I could see where a new default one was created. Astonishingly, even this newly-created default one had the old company name in it, as did new documents!

In respect of your further points, no (I’m not calling the template from a network drive), yes (I did search subfolders on the HD), no (the HD is not partitioned), yes (I did eliminate all but one regenerated normal.dot with the same problem – see above).

Thus it appears the mystery deepens, although Phil Rabichow (see his thread) has suggested a possible embedding of Company Name in Winword.exe itself.

Many thanks again, Dave

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If it is embedded, could you rename/move Winword.exe and run repair?

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Leif – Thanks again. I renamed winword.exe and tried a repair, but since this hung after about 10 minutes I had to reboot and reinstall office. Guess what … my trusty old company name was back to haunt me again in new documents. Now I understand what is meant by persistent memory!

Dave

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The Company name can get stuck in a reg key, look at this document for instructions how to remove the key.

WD2000: How to Reset User Options and Registry Settings – perform the steps under To Delete the Data Subkey, please note this resets any custom menus and toolbars, but should also reset the Company name, if the other steps you followed did not.

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SUCCESS!!

Congratulations to JamesB – following these instructions has finally laid my old company name to rest, and new Word2K documents are now at last showing my new company.

Very many thanks for solving this puzzling problem, James, as well as to everyone else who provided helpful suggestions along the way.

… Dave

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Dave,

FWIW, the Settings value of the Data key holds many of the personal settings in Tools/Options such as:

– Tools/Options/Edit settings
– Tools/Options/User Info, Mailing Address
– Tools/Options/Print settings
– Tools/Options/Save settings

Along with:
– AutoCorrect dialog box settings
– MRU list under File

And several others. I don’t believe the Company name is stored there but it doesn’t hurt to try.

However, I would recommend renaming the Settings value instead of deleting it. That way you can easily return to all of your personal settings.

Edit to Post:
It appears as though I was a little too late!

In any event, I’m glad it’s fixed and you may want to review the above referenced settings.
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Cheers!

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BAM – Actually I did play safe and, in order to be able to resotre the settings, exported this particular registry setting before deleting it. However, renaming is a better idea and one that was suggested as part of the solution given by PO’Rourke in KB article http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q233/4/99.ASP

I hesitate to mention it, but although my Username and Company are now correct in the properties of new Word documents, only the latter appears in the properties of new mail messages using Word as editor – the author field is blank even though, according to the properties box, the Normal template is being used and this does contain my name. I think perhaps I’d better quit while I’m winning on Company name!

Dave

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Have you tried a test e-mail from Word to yourself to see if the name is inserted by OL during the send process?

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It comes back with a different style of File/Properties box, much abbreviated and which doesn’t feature author, company or statistics fields, so it is not possible to tell – Dave

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Hi Dave,

The Author is the user name you used when Outlook was setup.

It can be changed in the Registry at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice9.0OutlookPreferences

There should be a String Value for:
AnnotationText

and the Value Data would be the Author Name.

If it is missing it can be added, but I doubt it is since it is created from the name found in the User Information in Tools/Accounts and the Properties for your email account.
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Cheers!

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BAM – Absolutely spot on! … this has fixed it and given me back my name. My life is now complete (in respect of company name and user name at least!). Very many thanks indeed! – Dave

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Hi, JamesB. You helped me also. Mucho Thxs. But can you assist in the same with Excel and Access? The Data Subkeys are not listed the same.

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Do either of these help?
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q211/7/93.ASP?%5B/url%5D
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q212/2/42.ASP%5B/url%5D

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I think there must be a ghost in my machine! I tried the suggestion in the KB article you pointed me to – temporarily renaming all normal.dot files on my machine.

However, even with no normal.dot to call on, Word still manages to remember my old company name in new documents!

I also did an exhaustive search (took more than 2 hours!) on the company text string in all files across my computer but this failed to throw up any source from which Word might be getting it.

Perhaps I should be pleased my computer has such phenomenal memory!

Dave

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Well, how about one last try. I read the WOW issue, but have some additional information that might work–then again…

Try looking for the company name in:
1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion key
2. HKEY_ CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoft MS Setup (ACME)User Info
3. Do a search for *.ini searching for the text of your company name (this was needed in W95 & I’m not sure what affect an upgrade has).

However, I should point out that the KB article:
“Q230121 WD2000: What’s Contained in Support9.dot and How to Install It” mentions that the company name is stored in winword.exe. I don’t know how, but if it is stored in some binary format, you’ll have trouble.

Hope this helps. Let us know.

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Phil – Thanks very much for your four suggestions. I’ve tried 1-3 but sadly none has thrown any light on where the old company name (LMU) is coming from, so it’s looking like your fourth idea may unfortunately be a strong possibility.

It’s beginning to look as if this ghost in the machine is not easily going to be laid to rest!

Dave

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On the off-chance this may help … on my office pc I had made a typo to user name when installing Word 2000. I was able to change it by going to (I think) Tools, Options, User Information[I’m going on memory as I have Word97SR2 at home)

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Patricia – Thanks for the suggestion; however, unfortunately, User Information doesn’t include Company Name (at least, not in Word2K).

Cheers! Dave

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I admit I have not read the entirethread so maybe you’ve had this already

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Thanks, Patricia. Actually I hadn’t seen this article, although had been pointed to other articles with the same contents which finally solved my problem. This one is actually more complete and is probably the best for anyone else with the same problem to follow.

Cheers! Dave

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