Those weird and wacky MS Word messages

L

Larry

Word 97 which I've been using since 1998. I saved an unsaved document,
and got this message, which I've never seen before:

"Do you also want to save changes to the Document Template?"

How is it that, having saved documents a couple of million times before
in Word 97, I never got this message until now? And what the heck does
it mean? Just wondering
 
J

Jay Freedman

Just a bit more background:

The reason the prompt is available is that silently changing things in
the Normal.dot template is a favorite trick of macro viruses. You
should leave the option turned on at all times. If you get the prompt
and you don't know what changed, you should answer No and the changes
won't be saved.

There are a few problems with that scenario. For one thing, many users
have no idea what Normal.dot is, let alone what they might have done
during an editing session to change it. (Some examples are: adding or
modifying a style and checking the "Add to template" box in the
dialog; making a new AutoCorrect or AutoText entry; creating or
modifying a toolbar button or a keyboard shortcut; or changing a font
setting in the Format > Font dialog and clicking the Default button.)

Even if you're aware of the things that can change the template, you
may not remember everything you did during a long session.

Finally -- thankfully! -- the #$% hackers and script kiddies seem to
have found that it's easier or more satisfyingly destructive to make
"regular" viruses rather than macro viruses, so there are fewer macro
attacks than there used to be. Also, the major antivirus apps are
pretty good at spotting infected documents and quarantining them
before they can even be opened.

One other thing: if the document is based on a template other than
Normal.dot and you did something that changed that template (for
example, adding a custom toolbar), you'll be prompted to save the
template regardless of the setting of the option for Normal.dot. It's
just the same as the prompt you get if you edit a document and then
click Close without saving.
 
M

MarkC

Lets say Normal.dot has a lot of changes from the original. How can one get
the Normal.dot back from it's original default setting when Word was first
installed? Using Word 2002(XP)...

Mark
 
L

Larry

Anne and Jay,

Sometimes I have the "prompt to save Normal" feature on, most of the
time not, but even if it's on that doesn't answer my question. I was
not closing Word, I was saving a document. Why should there be any
prompt regarding the saving of changes in the Normal template when I was
simply saving a document?

Moreover, the same thing just happened again now. I was saving an
unsaved document, and got the same prompt,

"Do you _also_ want to save changes to the Document Template?" (Note
that "also.")

Further, the "Prompt to save Normal template" feature is NOT checked
right now. Yet I got this weird prompt. What does saving a document
have to do with saving changes in Normal. It makes no sense.

Larry
 

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