Message Box About Macros When Open Word

[WPD]

Hi all

When I open Word, I get a pop-up box that says:
"The function you are attempting to run contains macros or content that
requires macro language support. When this software was installed, you (or
your administrator) chose not to install support for macros or controls."

I am NOT trying to open a document in Word when this happens. I am just
opening Word, itself. The information in the box babbles on about trust
settings. However, even if I set it to trust any macro that comes down the
pike, I still get the same message box. Indeed, why would there even be a
macro in the base Word executable that would trigger this message box?

To close the box, you must either click on the "OK" button or the X button 6
times before no more instances of this pop-up box occurs.

Any ideas. BTW, I have done searches in both Google and this forum, but I
haven't found anything.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Find normal.dot in your profile and rename it as normal.bad. This will
normally be in C:\documents and settings\username\application
data\microsoft\templates fiolder.

 

[WPD]

Hi Terry

I located normal.dotm in the c:\documents etc. folder that you specifed. I
changed it to Normal.bad, and then I opened Word 2007. I still got the same
message box about Macros as I got originally. However, this time when I tried
to close Word 2007by clicking on the window's "X", the same message box about
Macros popped-up again. This time there was only the one box and it closed
with a single click on the "OK" button. However, Word 2007 did NOT close, so
I clicked on the "X" again. This time, I got different pop-up box that said
that "Changes have been made that affect the global template, Normal.dotm. Do
you want to save these changes?" I clicked on the "Yes" button, and this
caused the same message box about Macros to pop-up, again. I clicked on the
"X" again, and the "Changes have been made....." box pooped up again. This
time, I clicked on "No", and Word 2007 finally closed.

When I checked to see if a new normal.dotm had been created, I found only
the original file that I had converted from Normal.dotm to Normal.bad.

Any thoughts on my next step?

*******************

 

[Terry Farrell]

What happens if you start in Safe Mode? From the Run command (Winkey+R) type
in

winword /a

and press enter. Word will start in Safe Mode. Does it open without the
error now and more importantly, does it close without the error? If it is
OK, you are looking for some incompatible third party add-in that is forcing
incompatible macros into Word.

Terry

 

[WPD]

Hi Terry

Opening Word in Safe Mode eliminated the problem. The program will both open
and close without error. I haven't voluntarily installed a third party
add-in. The error notifications began immediately after I installed Office
2007, and they only occur in Word and do not occur in Excel.

Do you think that I should perform an uninstall and reinstall of Office 2007?

Thanks for your help.

********************

 

[Terry Farrell]

Uninstall/reinstall will not work. If this started immediately you installed
Word 2007, then it is a legacy add-in that worked with your previous version
but if not fully compatible with the new version, You need to remove the
offending add-in. Uninstalled Office won't remove it.

Start by looking in the Word Start-up folder and see what templates are
installed. Remove them temporarily and test again. If Word works without the
templates, put them back one at a time until you find the culprit.

Terry

 

[Mathias.Thorell]

Hi !
I have exactly the same problem with MS Office 2003.
(I upgraded from MS Office 2002.)
My Word Startup folder(s9 are all empty and I have tried with renaming
all my old Office folders in C:\Program Files\ and I still get this
extremely annoying popup message both while starting MS Word, and also
when closing it.
There is no Normal.dot template messing everything up for me neither.

Has anyone been able to solve this yet ?

Cheers !
/Mathias

 

[Terry Farrell]

You have no normal.dot?

Terry

 

[Mathias.Thorell]

You have no normal.dot?

Nope. I used to (from the earlier, Office 2002, installation) but I
renamed it and the problem is still there ;(

Cheers !
/Mathias

 

[Terry Farrell]

What happens when you start in Safe Mode. From Start, Run (Winkey+R), type
in

winword /a

and press enter. Do you get the message now?

Terry

 

[Mathias.Thorell]

What happens when you start in Safe Mode. From Start, Run (Winkey+R), type
in

winword /a

and press enter. Do you get the message now?

No, in this case there are no error messages at all, not during
startup of Word, nor when terminating it.
As I said, I have the exactly same symptoms as originally described in
this thread

Cheers !

 

[Terry Farrell]

Either there is a macro attached to normal.dot or you have a third party
add-in that has an active macro being loaded on start up. You need to find
out if the macro is safe and then allow it through the Trust settings in
Word Options.

Terry

 

[Mathias.Thorell]

Either there is a macro attached to normal.dot

I do not have any normal.dot file, not in my PC and not in my network
either.

or you have a third partyadd-in that has an active macro being loaded on start up.

Thos should be visible in the Word startup folder, right ? Well, it is
empty, and a s far as I know, there are no 3:rd party macros/add-ons
in our LAN / my PC either (I am the IT manager here .-

You need to find out if the macro is safe and then allow it through the Trust settings in
Word Options.

Yes, I found those instructions, but there are no macros to "allow" at
all. Nothing.
Due to security reasons, VBA support is not installed, so I assume
this might mess up things, but VBA is completely prohibited in our
organization, so I just wan the popups to go away. Forever ;-/

Cheers !
/Mathias

 

[Terry Farrell]

Sorry but you MUST have a normal.dot. It should be in every users' profile.
Check under Tools, Options, file Locations tab to see where yours is
located.

To prove that there is a normal.dot, go to Format, Font and select a
different font, or size or some other attribute and press the DEFAULT
button. Now close Word. (Providing you have not changed the default setting
for Save Prompts), you should be prompted to save changes to the global
template (normal.dot) when you close Word. (Note that if you use Word as
your email editor in Outlook, then Outlook must be closed too).

Terry

 

[Mathias.Thorell]

Sorry but you MUST have a normal.dot. It should be in every users' profile.
Check under Tools, Options, file Locations tab to see where yours is
located.

Nope, there is no Normal.dot file in the User, nor Workgroup template
folders.

To prove that there is a normal.dot, go to Format, Font and select a
different font, or size or some other attribute and press the DEFAULT
button. Now close Word. (Providing you have not changed the default setting
for Save Prompts), you should be prompted to save changes to the global
template (normal.dot) when you close Word. (Note that if you use Word as
your email editor in Outlook, then Outlook must be closed too).

Doing this gives me the initial prompt about saving the changes in the
global template (why on earth the "global" template ?! I'm in a
network and if I change the default font, it should be default for ME
not for the whole company, well, well out of scope for the current
problem).
I answer Yes and then I get the, by now, very hated "The function you
are attempting to run contains macros or content that..." popup.
I click Ok and Word refuses to close.
The only way to close Word is to select No in the prompt about saving
the changes in the global template.

Now, out of curiosity, I got hold of a Normal.dot file and put it in
my User Templates folder.
I repeated all and got this (when I close word) :
The "The function you are attempting to run contains macros or content
that..." popup. I click Ok.
Word is still up and running.
I try to close Word again.
Now the "save to global template" prompt shows up. I click Yes.
I get another "The function you are attempting to run contains macros
or content that..." popup. I click Ok.
Word is still up and running.
Again, I must select "No" in the "save to global template" prompt to
be able to shut down word. :-(

Cheers !
/Mathias

 

[Terry Farrell]

This leads me to be certain that you have a third party add-in running that
is incompatible with Word. Are you using any form of network management
utility?

Terry

 

[Mathias.Thorell]

This leads me to be certain that you have a third party add-in running that
is incompatible with Word.

Even if the Startup-folders are empty ?

Are you using any form of network management utility?

None that I'm aware of.

Cheers !
/Mathias

 

[Beth Melton]

Chances are the reason you are encountering this message is because VBA
hasn't been installed for Office 2007 and a third-party add-in is attempting
to run a macro when Word starts. Even though you cleared your Startup
folders that doesn't necessarily mean you've ruled out add-ins. There are
also COM Add-ins and depending on how they are installed they can be easy or
difficult to locate.

To check for COM Add-ins, click the Office Button, click Word Options and
then click Add-ins. Active add-ins will appear in the list. To manage them,
click the Manage drop down at the bottom, select the add-in type, and then
click Go. Note that templates must be moved out of the folder they are
located in and can't be disabled using Word Options.

Additionally, Word Options doesn't show you every single add-in. If a COM
add-in is installed per-machine (rather than per-user -- those are what you
see in Word Options) then to check for them there are a couple methods you
can use. Here's an article you can use for this purpose:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555220

Start with Method 3 and make the following changes:

- For Macro Security in Word 2007 click Trust Center in Word options and
then click the Trust Center button.
- For the Process Explorer use this link to obtain the download:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Terry Farrell]

To add to Beth's thoughts, it has also been found that Pure Networks tool
causes some weird problems with W2007: you don't use that on your network?

Terry

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To add to what Terry and Beth have said, the reference to the "global
template" are references to Normal.dot. It is a "global" template because it
contains settings and styles that apply or are available to *all* documents,
regardless of what template they're based on, unless the settings in the
specific document template override those in Normal.dot. You can create
additional "global" templates to load as add-ins. These can provide
toolbars, menus, keyboard shortcuts, macros, and AutoText entries but don't
contribute styles or document formatting; the latter are provided only by
the document template attached to the document. See "Normal.dot
Template-Explained" at
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=151and
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/WhatTemplatesStore.htm.