• Normal.dot corruption in Word2003 (Word 2003)

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    #430087

    I’m just wondering if any others out there are seeing some of the same problem my company is seeing with Word 2003. We have had several reports from users of times that Word does not open correctly. Even though it says the window is maximized, the whole screen is dropped down about 1/3 of the way lower on their screen, cutting off the bottom, and it will not allow you to drag up it or enlarge it, as it thinks it’s already maximized.

    I found that if I ran Word from the run line with the command switch to start up without the normal.dot template, then it opened fine. So I delete the normal.dot template and allow it to re-create, and everything is okay — but only for a few days, then the problem repeats itself.

    Also, when this happens, even though Word is closed (not showing on taskbar at bottom), it will still show as running in the Processes tab in the Task Manager. Even after closing it there, when I go to delete the normal.dot template, it also shows an “open copy” of the template in the same place (you know, the way it shows ~$Normal.dot) I delete the temp and the regular normal.dot to temporarily clear up the problem, but as I said, it returns.

    I think the second problem (Word not closing out of task manager) is probably related to the first problem (not opening maximized window properly) but I can’t find anything on Microsoft Knowledge Base that addresses this as a known problem at all.

    Would be curious to hear if others have encountered these problems with Word 2003.

    pribb

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    • #1003250

      Do the users use Word as their mail editor in Outlook? If so, let them try working with Outlook’s native mail editor for a while (select Tools | Options… in Outlook, activate the Mail Format tab and clear the check box labeled “Use Microsoft Word to edit e-mail messages”)

      Also see Phil Rabichow’s Systematic Approach to Behavioral Problems in Word (97/2000).

      • #1003253

        Good idea, Hans! I will try that. Unfortunately “use Word as your e-mail editor” was set as the default by group policy when Office 2003 was deployed here (that wasn’t MY recommendation), and originally we couldn’t even change it. But I think they have opened group policy to be able to turn it off now, so we will try that. It would make sense — if Outlook is holding open a copy of the normal.dot template.

        pribb

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    Reply To: Normal.dot corruption in Word2003 (Word 2003)

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