# Solved: Word 2003 Normal.dot issue



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

I'm getting a pretty strange issue. The symptoms are as follows:


User opens a Word document as an attachment from an Outlook E-mail.
When closing the document, the user gets the error "This file is in use by another application or user (normal.dot)".
Clicking OK leads to a screen that would allow you to save Normal.dot with a different name.
Closing that out without saving nets the error "Changes have been made that affect the global template, normal.dot do you want to save the changes?"
Clicking No brings up a blank Word document, which the user can then close.
This is on an XP Pro, SP 2 machine. I went through all the Word troubleshooting steps listed on this site already....so this one has me kind of stumped. Something isn't releasing Normal.dot, but I have absolutely no idea what. Any thoughts?


----------



## slurpee55 (Oct 20, 2004)

Probably the first thing to do is close all office programs and then find Normal.dot and delete it. Word will create a new one when it is restarted.
Let me know if that works.


----------



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

Already tried that. Deleted every instance of and shortcut to the file. Also did an uninstall, cleaned up the registry and reinstalled, no luck.


----------



## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

Welcome to the forum.

Look within your word startup folder and try deleting what is in there. Also check to see what templates are loading when the program us opened. To see the files that are being loaded go to "Tools">>"Templates and Addins" and see what is being loaded within there. When you deleted the normal.dot did it recreate it? Sometimes it bugs out and does not recreate it. If it does not then manually make a new normal.dot via right-clicking within the folder and naming it normal.dot and see if that fixes it.


----------



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

Thanks.

Normal.dot recreated, I deleted that and replaced it with a Normal.dot from another machine that wasn't having the problem. No good. Reset the user profile for the user having the problem, didn't work either. There was nothing in the Word startup folder and normal.dot appears to be the only template in the office Templates folder.


----------



## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

Did you try logging in with another profile on the PC and see if it still has issues?


----------



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

I haven't been able to duplicate the issue with a different user profile, but rebuilding the user's profile did not solve it.


----------



## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

Do you have roaming profiles?


----------



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

Nope, no roaming profiles.


----------



## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

What exactly did you do when you rebuilt his profile?


----------



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

Renamed the local profile folder in Documents and Settings to username_date.


----------



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

Still been unable to find a solution to this issue. Any further assisstance would be greatly appreciated.


----------



## STAW (May 15, 2008)

Turns out user's Application Settings (including a corrupted Normal.dot) were being saved in a network directory. My bad. Consider this one resolved.


----------



## Bentendo (Sep 16, 2008)

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=331259&sliceId=2

Seems that if you have Adobe's Acrobat 7.0 installed your normal.dot won't update anymore. You do see the temp ~$Normal.dot but when you exit word, this temp file disapears and the original normal.dot won't be updated.

Even if you rename or delete normal.dot Msword 2003 won't create a new one (what it usually does)

Within Acrobat 7.0 choose help/check for updates and let it update to 7.1.0 (at least that is what i got today sept 16th 2008)

tried again and voila, it's working again. (word created a new normal.dot and when i installed some template.dot it updated the normal.dot!)


----------



## jimr381 (Jul 20, 2007)

STAW please mark the thread as solved via the "Mark Solved" button at the top of the post. For future reference for all you can go into "Tools">>"Templates and Add-ins" and click on the "Attach" button to see where the normal.dot resides like I was saying before. This can help you if you are unsure of where it is.


----------

